"Vasseur continues his love affair with Toto” - Red Bull senior figure slams rival F1 bosses for opposing lighter engines in 2026

Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko fired shots at Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur for aligning himself with rival Mercedes in the discussion for lighter engines in the 2023 season.

The sport will go through a massive engine regulations change at the start of the 2023 season where the hybrid power units will forego the use of MGU-K and become more sustainable.

However, there have been issues raised by certain teams. They have claimed that this change will make the engines heavier and not lighter, which will be detrimental to the overall weight distribution between the battery and chassis.

Speaking with Motorsport-Total, Helmut Marko mentioned that Ferrari and Mercedes are not on board with their suggestion of lighter engines.

"The fact that you then have to slim down the car aerodynamically so that it no longer has any air resistance means that the effect of the slipstream is lost. There are brands that have the same concerns," he said.

"[Frederic] Vasseur is continuing his love affair with Toto [Wolff]. Therefore there is little resonance at Ferrari. At Renault, they don't know what they're doing. "We don't have any allies at the moment," Marko added.

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Former Red Bull driver sings praises of his former team's dominance in 2023

Former Red Bull driver Mark Webber recently stated that world champions should get due for their dominance citing that a lot of hard work and effort goes behind the scenes.

Speaking with F1.com, Webber said:

“I think it’s really hard for people to understand this level of domination, how much work and effort goes into it. That’s the big thing, you’ve got to give credit, people have to give credit where it’s due. To get that level of advantage with the depth of competition in F1…"

"There are so many, so many opportunities to make mistakes, whether it’s pit stops, reliability, presentation of the car, driver errors, but it’s just been run for the ages, and obviously [McLaren in] 1988 was the last time it happened," he added.

Mark Webber also gave his take on what issues can stop Max Verstappen from winning a third consecutive championship.

“It’s only reliability [problems] that will stop it, I think. I think the world would like to see him win his home race [at Zandvoort]. To do the business there would be extraordinary. He should win that one and then he’s equal," he added.

It would be interesting to see if anything deters Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the second half of the season.