Red Bull proclaims McLaren will be caught in 3 to 5 races as Max Verstappen given championship boost 

Red Bull's Helmut Marko has made a bold proclamation that McLaren would be caught in the next three to five races. This comes after the race in Australia, where the Austrian team was nowhere close to the reigning champions in terms of performance.

In qualifying, McLaren's Lando Norris secured pole position for his team, while Max Verstappen could only secure a P3 start with a lap that was almost 4-tenths slower than the benchmark. The major difference between both cars seemed to be the MCL39's ability to keep the tires alive in the final sector, and it was in that sector alone, where Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri would pull around three-tenths over Max Verstappen.

Talking to Viaplay, Red Bull's Helmut Marko admitted that this was one of the concerns for the team, and tire wear is one area where McLaren seems to be pulling away.

"We already knew after the test in Bahrain that McLaren was a lot faster," Marko said (as quoted by RacingNews365). "But we were able to reduce that advantage, from about half a second to three tenths. We can keep up with their pace for six, seven or maybe even eight laps, but the tires wear out faster with us. That is the main problem that we have to work on now." (Translated from Dutch).

Marko did, however, make a bold proclamation that the Red Bull is working for solutions and would catch up to the reigning champions in a span of few races.

"That's the main problem. We also have other problems, but they are known by now and we are already working hard on them. But I think that within three to five races we should hopefully be at McLaren's level."

This aspect of tire wear was also evident in the race, where it initially looked like Red Bull could stay with the McLaren for a few laps, but ultimately, after a few laps, the tires started to go away for the Austrian team.

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Red Bull boss believes Max Verstappen was close to winning in Melbourne against Lando Norris

Helmut Marko gave his take on the race and said that even in the dying stages of the Australian GP, Max Verstappen was very close to winning. The 81-year-old felt that the Dutchman was arguably the faster driver in those conditions where he was hounding Lando Norris for the lead in the last few laps.

As quoted by the aforementioned source, Marko said:

“But even under those more difficult circumstances and all the safety cars, Max was just there again. I think he was even the faster driver in the last six laps (compared to Norris, ed.), but there was only one dry line and overtaking was simply not possible. So he tried to push Lando into a mistake, although that didn't quite work out. But it is a good result for us.”

Red Bull has started the season on a relatively positive note as Max Verstappen has secured the podium from a race weekend that he was already writing off. The team will try to keep ticking off the points at every race to prevent Lando Norris and McLaren from increasing their gap.