"McLaren are three tenths ahead," reveals Helmut Marko
Following the three-day pre-season testing, Red Bull's motorsport advisor Dr Helmut Marko insisted that the Milton Keynes-based outfit still needs to iron out a few issues with its new car.
Max Verstappen ended the last day of pre-season testing second on the timesheets, 0.021s away from Mercedes’ George Russell, with 81 laps to his name. However, the Hasselt-born driver indicated that his team will need to iron out a few issues before the season gets underway in Melbourne.
Shared mixed feelings after pre-season testing, the reigning four-time World Champion revealed that Red Bull had a few issues to overcome, but he felt that the Milton Keynes-based outfit made a step forward compared to the second half of last season.
Echoing the Dutchman's words, Red Bull's motorsport advisor Dr Helmut Marko admitted that the RB21 is more predictable and responsive than its predecessor which saw the Austro-British outfit struggle for pace in the second half of last season.
“I’m not disappointed with the RB21, but it would have been nice if our adaptations and innovations had worked right away. The car is more predictable, it reacts to changes in trim as it should, there is no longer the unpredictability that characterized much of 2024.
However, the Austrian has revealed that some early updates introduced in Bahrain did not perform as expected, and Red Bull will need to find out how to get some development to work.
"Some news didn’t work and this means we still have room for improvement.”
Marko expects McLaren to carry over its competitive advantage into the upcoming season, estimating that the reigning world champion outfit enjoying a gap of two-three tenths of a second which is mainly due to better tyre degradation.
“We still have 2-3 tenths to be at the level of McLaren, which has had a much better degradation than ours in terms of tires,” concluded Marko.
