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Red Bull supremo Helmut Marko has shared a worrying prediction for Max Verstappen, as he expects things to be worse in Imola. The Austrian team and the Dutch driver caught a second wind of sorts in the last race when the reigning champion had the pace to beat both McLaren drivers.
Verstappen was in contention for pole from the start of the session, and even though he missed out on P1, he started the race from the front row. After dispatching Oscar Piastri with a stunning move into Turn 1, the Dutch driver never looked back. For the first time this season, the Red Bull had the pace to beat McLaren.
A part of it has been put down to Red Bull making improvements to the car with their set of upgrades. The other part is the track layout, which had quite a few high-speed sections. The next race is in Monaco, and Marko had bad news for Max Verstappen, as he didn't feel that the car could be as strong around the layout.
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Talking to OE24, the Austrian shared his concern as he said:
"That was just Imola; things could look completely different at the next Grand Prix. A completely different track with only slow corners. Things could go much worse there."
When questioned about what has changed with the car in the last few races, Marko stated that the upgrades have worked and the RB21 now does what Max Verstappen wants. He said:
"The car is now doing what Max wants again. That's thanks to the updates, which, thank God, worked."
The race win was set up by the stunning overtake on Oscar Piastri at T1 by Max Verstappen. It would have been tough otherwise because the latter would not have had free air and track position. Marko paid tribute to the move himself as he said:
"With his maneuver at the start, Max proved once again that he's the best: Identifying the gap and then exploiting it is something only he can do."
Red Bull to not stop Max Verstappen from racing during off weekends
Max Verstappen made news ahead of the F1 Imola GP when he was spotted testing the GT3 car at Nurburgring. While other team bosses like Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu have bluntly declined any such possibility for any of his drivers, Helmut Marko was quite clear in Red Bull's stance.
Marko said that the team was not going to stop the Dutch driver from trying his hand in different cars, especially since that is his passion. He said, via aforementioned source:
"You could say that. Max is a thoroughbred racing driver who enjoys getting into a GT car and racing, even on Formula 1-free weekends. It builds him up, so we will never forbid him from doing that."
Max Verstappen is P3 in the championship, but the gap between him and Oscar Piastri at the top is now only 22 points, which can be bridged in the upcoming races and make the championship even more intense.
