F1, Red Bull: back-and-forth between Sergio Perez and Helmut Marko

Runway exit in Q1 ignites discussion in Red Bull house

Red Bull’s Saturday in Australia was definitely a Saturday with two faces: the smiling one of Max Verstappen, who dominated qualifying by taking pole position, and the wrinkled one of Sergio Perez, who due to a track exit in Q1 will be forced to start from the last box on the grid.

It was precisely the episode that negatively characterized the Mexican’s day that ignited the internal discussion within the team. ‘Checo’, in fact, pointed the finger at an alleged technical problem: “We already had it and we thought we had fixed it,” he told ‘Sky Sport F1’. “It’s a difficulty that affects the braking, if it occurs again in the race it will be another difficult day.

Close behind, however, came Helmut Marko’s response. In fact, the Milton Keynes-based team’s consultant denied, to ‘Servus Tv’, problems with the car, calling the driver himself into question: “It’s true, in FP3 Perez’s car had a problem under braking, but what happened in Q1 has nothing to do with it. At the beginning of the session there was simply little grip, Checo simply ran off the track.”