Marko Warns About One Area That Could Produce Problems For Red Bull In China

Saturday, 13 April 2024 at 19:30

Updated at Saturday, 13 April 2024 at 19:32

Red Bull's motorsport advisor, Helmut Marko, outlined one area that might complicate the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix weekend for his team.

Red Bull already encountered one setback on their way to the 2024 Championship title during the Australian Grand Prix, where the Austrian team scored only 10 points and allowed Ferrari to catch up.

Ferrari has been closely following the team from Milton Keynes since the start of the season. Although the team from Maranello has a slower car, it has made no mistakes so far and maximized all of its opportunities.

Moreover, Ferrari drivers teased an upgrade, which they hope will allow them to go toe-to-toe with Red Bull more regularly and maybe even challenge for the Constructors' Championship.

Therefore, Red Bull must create as big a gap as possible between themselves and the Italian team in second place before they can introduce the upgrade.

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Red Bull's next chance to score big will be during next week's Chinese Grand Prix Shanghai International Circuit. Marko hopes for a clean weekend with no surprises, as he told Sky Sports:

"I hope we won't have any surprises like in Melbourne. There the asphalt was so aggressive, and we were completely wrong about tire wear, which is precisely one of our strengths. You could see that with Checo [Perez], how much tire wear there was."

Formula 1 has not visited the track in Shanghai for four years. The new generation of cars (introduced in 2022) hasn't raced here yet, and nobody knows what to expect.

What will add to the excitement and unpredictability of the weekend is that F1 drivers and their teams will only have one practice session before jumping into Sprint Shootout and Sprint race. Marko added:

"So it could still be a surprise that way [in China], but we have been warned by what happened at Melbourne and I think now we know better how to react. But it's a completely new situation for most of us."