How has Max Verstappen dealt with turbulence at Red Bull? Helmut Marko sheds light on driver's approach

Helmut Marko has said that Max Verstappen has detached himself from Red Bull's internal politics and has been completely focused on racing. The start of the season was a turbulent one for the Austrian team.

It all began with the Red Bull internal investigation against Christian Horner, which proved to be the beginning of a political battle within the team. The battle didn't end there, as Max Verstappen's father, Jos Verstappen, took shots at Horner's leadership in the team.

For the first few races, it didn't affect results because Red Bull were clearly the fastest car on the grid, and the opposition couldn't compete. From Melbourne onwards, the competition has closed down significantly, and there has been a reconsideration of how the rest of the season could go.

In an interview with OE24, Helmut Marko was questioned on how he felt Max Verstappen handled the situation. The Austrian said that Verstappen had detached himself from the entire thing and focused on racing alone.

“Max disengaged himself out of it and is concentrated on racing. So he did a very good job"

Marko opted not to comment on the ongoing legal case involving Horner, saying that the focus of the team is on racing. He said:

"That is something you have to put aside, especially in a situation where you are so challenged as a team and technically and everyone has to pull together.”

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Max Verstappen on just focusing on the racing bit

Max Verstappen was questioned early in the season in the F1 Australian GP about the internal turbulence at Red Bull.

The Dutch driver shared that his job is to drive the car to the best of his ability. He said that he felt that all the things were handled in the right way, so he could completely focus on the track:

"Because at the end of the day, I’m the driver and I’m here to look at the performance side of things. That’s what I’m hired for. But from what I know, everything was handled in the right way.

"I’m not going into any further details from that side because I don’t know more than that, and I also don’t want to know, because that’s not my job or my task within the team.”

After the race in Monaco, Max Verstappen leads the championship by 31 points over Charles Leclerc. With the gap closing up between the competitors, it will be interesting to see how the driver approaches the rest of the season.

The form guide is certainly hinting towards a bigger challenge at the front with Verstappen losing two of the last three races.