(Motorsport-Total.com) – Despite a strong comeback, Max Verstappen narrowly missed out on his fifth world title in a row in Formula 1 this season. The previous Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko is convinced that the Dutchman could still have become world champion. In his view, the prerequisite for this would have been an earlier separation from team boss Christian Horner.
© Bryn Lennon – Formula 1
The former Red Bull successful trio Christian Horner, Helmut Marko and Max Verstappen
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“We had to act because the performance on the track was decreasing. And if we had done it earlier, we would have gotten back on track more quickly and Max Verstappen would have become world champion this year,” says Marko in an interview with the Dutch newspaper The Limburger. “I am absolutely convinced of that.”
Shortly after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it was announced that Red Bull and Helmut Marko were ending their more than 20-year collaboration with immediate effect, despite an ongoing contract. Last summer, Marko, in coordination with Oliver Mintzlaff, who is responsible for sports at Red Bull, pushed forward the removal of Christian Horner as team boss of Red Bull Racing. Horner was also previously part of the team for more than two decades.
How Christian Horner wanted to seize power
The separation from Horner was often interpreted as the end of an internal power struggle. Marko contradicts this representation. “That’s how it was always described in the media, but it was nothing personal,” says the 82-year-old Austrian.
“Together with Didi [Red-Bull-Gründer Dietrich Mateschitz] I founded Red Bull Racing in 2005. We appointed Horner as team boss and I was there as a supervisor,” said Marko about the creation of the racing team. “Basically, the power always lay in Austria. We made the decisions.”
The era of Helmut Marko at Red Bull
Mateschitz died in October 2022. Marko remembered an event a few months earlier. “I remember a celebration earlier in the year, before the Austrian Grand Prix. Didi was there, but was already in poor health. Christian came to me and said: ‘He won’t live to see the end of the year.'” From this point on, Horner began to get closer to the Thai co-owner Chalerm Yoovidhya.
Helmut Marko accuses Christian Horner of playing dirty games
“When Didi died later that year, Christian did everything he could to take control of the company with the support of Yoovidhya,” Marko explains. “On behalf of the Austrian side, I did everything I could to prevent this.” This approach was ultimately successful, but required the separation from Horner.
After the summer break and the separation from Horner, Verstappen started a remarkable comeback under new team boss Laurent Mekies and ended the season just two points behind world champion Lando Norris. Nevertheless, Marko looks back critically on the last few years of working with Horner. “These last years with Horner were not pleasant,” he explains. “Dirty games were played.”
Marko referred to several allegations, which he described as targeted misrepresentations. “Do you remember the claim at the time of Sergio Perez that I said that Mexicans were less focused than the Dutch or Germans? That was invented, possibly by them,” says Marko, referring to Horner’s environment.
He made similar comments about rumors from 2024 about alleged delays in engine development. “The same applies to the claim that I spread the word that our engine development was behind schedule and that we would therefore lose Ford as a partner. I never said that,” emphasizes Marko.
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Horner wanted to use these allegations to get himself suspended. “Thanks to Max’s support in Jeddah, that didn’t happen.” Ultimately, Horner also lost the support of Chalerm Yoovidhya. “We were able to prove more and more often that Horner lied about everything,” says Marko. “When Chalerm also realized this, he changed his mind.”
