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Helmut Marko's latest admission about Max Verstappen's future at Red Bull is far from ideal, at least for the Red Bull fans. Marko, who works as the advisor for the Austrian team, stated that Verstappen's situation within the team is of great concern and they need to improve in the near future if they want to hold on to the champion driver.
Red Bull's RB21 woes were exposed significantly after Verstappen qualified in P7 on Saturday at the Bahrain GP, followed by P6 in the race. Thanks to his race craft, the Dutchman was able to extract two extra points from Esteban Ocon at the last moment, else he had to stay happy with P7.
For someone willing to retain his world championship and become a five-time world champion, the current state of Red Bull is beyond just concerning, as paddock chatters point towards a warning bell within the Milton Keynes-based camp.
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Following the conclusion of the Bahrain GP, Red Bull Racing called an emergency internal meeting where the top brass of the organization was involved. The meeting took place between Christian Horner, the team principal; Pierre Wache, the technical director; Paul Monaghan, the chief engineer and Helmut Marko, the advisor.
As per reports, Marko's statement has come after the crisis meeting within the Red Bull camp, where the Austrian team reportedly looked concerned about Verstappen's stay in the team in the upcoming seasons.
"It’s clear. We must make progress that is not expressed in points, but on the stopwatch,” Marko told Sky Germany. “With such a performance, it won’t be anything to do with the World Championship.”
“The concern is great,” Marko admitted. "As I said, improvements have to come in the near future so that he has a car with which he can win again. We have to create a basis with a car so that he can fight for the World Championship.”
As things stand, Red Bull has the fourth fastest team in F1 after McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari. However, thanks to Max Verstappen's racecraft and Ferrari's poor luck, they are currently holding on to P3 in the Constructors' championship.
Max Verstappen after poor Bahrain GP: "Everything went wrong"
Max Verstappen made his feelings known after an underwhelming outing at the Bahrain International Circuit race on Sunday (April 13). Speaking about his troubles, the Dutchman pointed out the difficulties he faced while driving the RB21 and the poor pit stops he endured during the race.
"Basically everything went wrong!” the Dutch driver conceded afterwards (via Formula 1). “We had a poor start, too much wheelspin when I dropped the clutch, and then the first stint again [I had] basically the same problems that I had in Qualifying, plus we were just overheating our tires too much compared to the competition ahead of us."
Max Verstappen experienced two painfully slow pit stops in Bahrain; the first one was 4.2 seconds, and the second one was 6.7 seconds. As a result, he lost all the advantage he gathered during the race. In the end, he had to stay happy with P6, which resulted him in losing P2 in the Drivers' standings to Oscar Piastri.
