Helmut Marko issues “everything is possible” warning to F1 rivals after Red Bull “rebirth”

Helmut Marko is “very optimistic” about Red Bull’s chances in the remaining part of the season after returning to winning ways at Monza.

Max Verstappen stormed to pole position and a dominant race victory at Monza last time out.

Verstappen beat Lewis Hamilton’s 2020 track record to pip Lando Norris in qualifying.

The Dutchman’s advantage on race day was 19 seconds after McLaren gambled on a suboptimal strategy by switching to the softs late on.

Marko is confident Red Bull will be particularly strong at high-speed circuits.

However, he hinted that Red Bull gave reasons to be optimistic at every race now.

“For Baku, the fast circuits, I’m very optimistic. I am hopeful for Singapore, the only race we didn’t win so far,” Marko said, as quoted by Motorsport.com.

“Normally on slow circuits, but I believe now everything is possible in this period.”

In a separate interview with Servus TV, he added: “I believe that with the speed we’ve shown, we should hopefully be able to compete on our own merit at almost every circuit. Singapore would be special — it’s the only race we’ve never won. But maybe it’ll work out there too.

“We’re still fine-tuning and refining things. If we can keep improving like this, that would be fantastic. The championship is gone, but a few more wins would be very nice.”

”Rebirth” for Red Bull

Marko hailed the early influence of new Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies.

Marko cited Mekies’ engineering background and how that’s helped Red Bull solve some of their setup woes.

“The difference is that the preparation is a different one,” he explained. “Laurent is an excellent engineer, so it’s more about: Take whatever the simulation is showing you, but mix it with the experience like Max has or the experience our engineers have. Make a car which is predictable and driveable.

“Basically it’s the same [car]. Some updates were coming and they were working, but 20 seconds on McLaren, I wouldn’t have predicted that.

“This feels like a rebirth for us — we’re all overjoyed. The atmosphere is fantastic, and the Red Bull spirit is back.”