Championship leader Max Verstappen was more frustrated than usual over the team radio in a struggle-filled Hungarian GP. Many speculated the reason to be the lack of sleep due to the 26-year-old’s late-night sim race ahead of the Grand Prix. However, Helmut Marko has called out such comments as “rubbish”.
Verstappen wasn’t happy for the majority of the race due to two main reasons. Firstly, the Dutchman did not like the lack of pace and balance on his car, despite getting upgrades in Hungary. Secondly, he also felt frustrated due to Red Bull’s race strategy errors, which put him out of the podium positions. Hence, his radio calls turned into a rant at times.
Verstappen even made rude comments when asked if he went too far with his radio chatter. However, after the race, Marko spoke about the comments saying that the Dutchman’s anger was a result of his late-night sim racing before the race in Budapest.
“Max has a different rhythm to me or other people,” Marko was quoted by Motorsport.com. “And the time he went to bed is nothing out of the ordinary for him… He’s got his sleep quota. He’s had it as usual. That’s rubbish“.
️ | Max on if an apology is needed to the team for the angry radio messages
“I don’t think we need to apologise, we just need to do a better job.
I don’t why people think we can’t be vocal on the radio, this is a sport. If some people don’t like that, stay at home.”#F1… pic.twitter.com/g0xsSxwH44
— RBR News (@redbulletin) July 21, 2024
The Red Bull advisor gave past instances of Verstappen staying up late at night ahead of the race in Imola. He stated that it didn’t affect him in any way whatsoever. Being a passionate sim racer, Verstappen is used to staying up late and then completely switching his focus on F1 races.
Even during the Saudi Arabian GP weekend, the three-time champion was up late to play iRacing. Regardless, he went on to win the Grand Prix in Jeddah the next day and he did the same in Imola, after driving in the Virtual 24 Hours of Nurburgring. But Marko didn’t just defend his driver, he also blamed the team for making him so angry on Sunday.
Marko admits that Red Bull ruined Verstappen’s race
Marko admitted that the team made a few mistakes during the Hungarian GP, as per a report from Motorsport Italy. The 81-year-old explained that the strategy team didn’t realize how much faster they needed to be to get past other cars.
Red Bull thought that if Verstappen was on the right tire compound, he could easily overtake others. But, it turned out that passing was really difficult in the race, due to the lack of pace in the RB20 and the Budapest track being tough to overtake.
Helmut Marko: “The main mistake was that we underestimated the delta we needed to overtake. Our strategy was based on the idea that with the right tyres we could overtake as we did last year.”
Motorsport Italy
— Junaid #JB17 (@JunaidSamodien_) July 22, 2024
Marko admitted that they probably couldn’t have beaten McLaren, given they had a clear pace advantage around the Hungaroring. Although, if they had made better strategy calls with the undercut, Verstappen could have been on the podium and much closer to the McLaren duo, the Red Bull advisor admitted.
