Red Bull's Helmut Marko makes startling claim about relationship with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff: "There are no longer the tensions we had"

In a startling change of stance, Red Bull's Helmut Marko has admitted that his relationship with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is in a much better place than it was in the past. This is a startling revelation from the Austrian after both teams have been at loggerheads for the last decade.

Since Wolff took over at Mercedes in 2014 he's led the Mercedes unit to eight consecutive titles. During this time, it could be said that Red Bull emerged as its primary contender. While Toto Wolff and Christian Horner have publicly been at loggerheads for all these years, the Austrian's relationship with Helmut Marko and even the Max Verstappen clan was fractious at best.

With the early season intra-team politics at Red Bull, where Horner found himself on the opposite side of Marko and Verstappen, it does appear that a new relationship appears to be forming. Since the start of the season, Wolff has been courting Verstappen for Mercedes as a replacement for Lewis Hamilton. While that has not materialized yet, it has seemingly led to a far more cordial relationship between the parties involved.

In an interview with OE24, Red Bull's advisor Helmut Marko gave arguably the biggest indication of a change of relations when he admitted that the tensions are no longer there between him and Toto. He said:

"There are no longer the tensions we had in previous years. But I've heard that we are now 'blood brothers' and frankly that seems like an exaggeration."

Helmut also didn't want to get drawn into having a similar role as Niki Lauda used to have at Mercedes, as proposed by Toto Wolff. Addressing the prospect of going to Brackley, Helmut said:

“It would be nice, but it's a distant scenario. Our goal is to restore calm in the team and win the world championship. And this will already be difficult enough."

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Helmut Marko addresses Max Verstappen's future at Red Bull

Helmut Marko also remained tight-lipped on the future of Max Verstappen at the Austrian squad. The driver has been linked with a move to Mercedes, but at the same time, the German team is not an attractive option at this stage. The team just doesn't have the results to make it a viable move.

Talking about Max Verstappen's future at Red Bull, Marko remained tight-lipped as he said:

"I'm in constant contact with him and we talk about everything.”

Keeping all this in mind, it is very interesting to see what the future holds for the team because there is certainly a level of turbulence that it has to go through, especially with Jos Verstappen's somewhat hostile stance towards Christian Horner.