Red Bull Advisor Marko 'Was Already Thinking About Leaving Last Season'

Tuesday, 12 March 2024 at 16:30

The advisor of the Red Bull Racing F1 team, Helmut Marko, asserted he was already thinking about leaving the team before all the drama that surfaced in recent weeks.

Helmut Marko's Red Bull career was reportedly on the line during the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend. The 80-year-old was accused of leaking information about Horner's investigation to the media.

However, after meeting with Oliver Mintzlaff, the managing director of Red Bull GmbH, Marko confirmed to the media that he would be staying with the Austrian team.

Speaking to Sky Germany a bit later during the second race weekend of the season, Marko completely dismissed the allegations of leaking messages to the media, joking he was already happy he could "half-use my mobile phone."

He also revealed he was touched by Max Verstappen's gesture, who warned he would leave if the team from Milton Keynes were to suspend Marko.

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Right now, there seems to be a temporary piece between the members who lead Red Bull Racing. Even though no one is currently leaving the team, the 80-year-old told De Telegraaf he "was already thinking about leaving at the end of last season."

The drama inside the Austrian team is not doing any good for the Red Bull brand, and Marko hopes it will be fully resolved as soon as possible. He added that the team owed respect to the founder of Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz, who passed away in 2022.

"But I think we should also think about team founder Dietrich Mateschitz and his legacy, what his ideas were and where it has taken us. We owe that to him, but I also see it as a kind of respect to an incredibly amazing personality."

All in all, as Verstappen said after the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, there is at least one positive thing, and that is that everything that has been going on didn't at all hurt Red Bull's performances, as the team recorded two one-two finishes in the first two races of the season.