Helmut Marko deems alleged Red Bull powershift statements “simply fake news”

The Red Bull Racing advisor, Helmut Marko, has come out against any claims that hint at the idea that team principal, Christian Horner, has been independently making decisions about the Austrian outfit's driver line-up. The claims apparently stem from Marko's comments, which angered the Austrian advisor, who denied that he ever made any comment on this.

Marko was alleged to have said that the team principal chose to bring in Sergio Perez into the team over Nico Hulkenberg entirely on his own. But the Red Bull consultant has since dispelled this idea entirely.

"That's nonsense, or in other words, absolute rubbish," Marko said. "Nobody knows the journalist and this is simply fake news." [via RacingNews365]

Marko's most recent statements come ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, where RBR's Max Verstappen will be starting on pole position, now with a new teammate in Yuki Tsunoda. Tsunoda was brought in last week as the replacement for Liam Lawson, who started the season with Red Bull but has now been placed in the sister team of Racing Bulls for the remainder of the season.

The switch in the driver line-up occured after Lawson failed to score any points during the first two races this year, which also included a DNF in the season-opener in Australia.

Tsunoda failed to make it out of Q2 on his Red Bull debut and will start the race from 14th place, with Lawson starting 13th. Verstappen, meanwhile, pipped championship leader Lando Norris to the pole position.

The Japanese Grand Prix will begin at 2:00 pm local time, tomorrow, April 6th.

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Red Bull team boss commends Max Verstappen on pole position in qualifying

Max Verstappen (1) is seen talking with his team in the garage preparing for the last free practice of the F1 Grand Prix of Japan 2025 at Suzuka Circuit on April 5, 2025 - Source: Getty

Helmut Marko also discussed the strong performance of Max Verstappen, after the Dutchman secured first place on the grid by 0.012s. The four-time World Champion secured his fourth pole position at the Suzuka Circuit at the end of qualifying, beating out the McLaren drivers who were on top of the table at the end of Q1 and Q2.

Speaking about his impressive performance, Marko relayed his surprise at the results.

"To be honest, we never expected this," he said. "We completely overhauled the car after the last practice. In the end, an incredible lap emerged in the qualification... only Max can do this."

"In the practice sessions, we were at least half a second slower, but we simply didn't know what was going wrong. The car was hardly responding anywhere, or in a completely different way than expected. However, suddenly in the qualification, everything worked out," [via GPBlog]

The Red Bull driver set a lap time of 1:26.983, which is the fastest lap record in the history of the circuit, and secured his place at the front of the grid.