“Maybe we can start dreaming”: Helmut Marko open to Max Verstappen’s title hopes after back-to-back wins 

Dr Helmut Marko claimed that Red Bull can "start dreaming" about Max Verstappen's fifth championship if they manage to improve their performance by the Singapore Grand Prix. The Dutchman currently sits in third place in the Drivers' Championship, which is headed by Oscar Piastri.

McLaren has dominated this season. However, their drivers haven't been the most consistent ones. While Piastri was strong enough, he crashed out in Baku earlier last week. All while Red Bull's Max Verstappen has been consistently scoring points, and won his second consecutive race in Baku, making that is fourth win of the season.

This has posed a threat to McLaren, whose team principal earlier mentioned that RBR could be a serious title contender in the Drivers' Championship.

While that is a possibility now that Verstappen has managed to narrow the gap between him and Piastri to 69 points, team advisor Helmut Marko still insists that it is a huge point difference.

"What Andrea said is very optimistic, but I hope he’s right," he told De Telegraaf. "The gap is still big, and it’s not often that a McLaren doesn’t finish the race."

However, the team has not given up on considering the possibility of Verstappen's fifth consecutive title. Marko added that if Red Bull does manage to perform strongly in Singapore in early October, they could "start dreaming" of leading the championship. He explained that Singapore hasn't been the best track for their cars previously, and the race there would set a benchmark for the remaining season.

"But we’ll see. If we’re competitive in Singapore in two weeks’ time, maybe we can start dreaming," he added. "Not only is it a different circuit, but it’s also boiling hot. Our car doesn’t always like that either. Singapore will be the benchmark for where we really stand. And we’ve always said: we have to be as close as possible to McLaren to make them nervous."

Max Verstappen, at the same time, also considers the gap massive enough to be filled in with seven races left in the season.

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Max Verstappen doesn't "rely on hope" in terms of championship contention

As mentioned, Verstappen is still 69 points behind Piastri in the championship despite his two consecutive race wins in Monza and Baku. With seven races remaining and F1 heading into a track that hasn't historically favored Red Bull, the Dutchman feels that it would be quite a challenge to lead the title.

Speaking about the possibilities of a title contention, Max Verstappen stated that he is aiming to extract the most from the car, and doesn't "rely on hope."

"I don’t rely on hope. But it’s seven rounds left – 69 points is a lot - so I personally don’t think about it," Max Verstappen asaid (via Motorsport). "I just go race by race, what I have been doing basically the whole season. Just trying to do the best we can, try to score the most points that we can. And then after Abu Dhabi, we’ll know."

Verstappen would have to win all the remaining races, including the Sprints (considering Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri perform the second and third best in the remaining races), to get a real shot at the title.