Max Verstappen and Christian Horner have given opposing views on the performance impact of the bollard incident at the Miami Grand Prix, with Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko backing Verstappen’s opinion.
While keeping McLaren’s Oscar Piastri at bay in the early stages of the Miami Grand Prix, race leader Verstappen struggled to make his trademark fade into the distance, suffering a rare crash when going off the track at the turn 14/15 chicane. He said he made mistakes and struggled. Bollards can roll into the truck and cause damage to the RB20 floor.
Helmut Marko says it’s a fact that Red Bull was slower than McLaren
Red Bull team principal Horner claimed that Verstappen “actually caused quite a bit of damage to the underside of the car” in that moment, with eventual winner Lando Norris enjoying a pace advantage over Verstappen in the final stint. He explained that he ran away with great strides. Earns his first F1 victory.
Verstappen disagreed, saying he “didn’t feel any change” in his RB20 after the collision with the bollard and that “the pace was the same” before and after the bollard.
Marko backed Verstappen’s opinion, saying it was a “fact” that Red Bull was slower than McLaren at Sunday’s Grand Prix in Miami.
“Max believes it wasn’t that serious,” Marko told oe24 in response to Horner’s theory. “We were actually slower than McLaren.”
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Norris chased down Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez in the opening stint, and when the safety car was brought out to cover a crash involving Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargent, Norris was ahead of the teams ahead. I ran for a long time and reaped the benefits.
Marko therefore reveals that this safety car intervention gave Norris a huge helping hand. That’s because it wasn’t easy to overtake and involve Verstappen without safety car intervention, as Norris struggled to overtake Perez.
When told that Norris had benefited from the safety car, Marko replied: “That’s right.”
“It would have been difficult for Norris to close the gap to Max and it would be very difficult to overtake in Miami.”
Miami was Verstappen’s second loss in 2024 in F1, a driver who has dominated this ground-effect era. But he certainly took it well, giving applause and thumbs up when he passed Norris on the cool-down lap, and adding after the race, “I’m very happy to lose to Lando today.”
Marko wasn’t surprised by the reaction, as Verstappen and Norris have a “very friendly relationship”, but added that Norris, who was finally looking forward to his first F1 win, now poses an “even more dangerous” threat on track. I’m more than concerned about what will happen.
“Max has a very friendly relationship with Norris,” Marco said. “He often takes me on planes and always arranges to meet up for sim races. It looks like Max could learn a thing or two from Norris when it comes to partying.
“But now there are concerns that Lando will become even more dangerous on the track because the pressure is off.”
All eyes now turn to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola to see if Norris and McLaren can maintain their challenge to Red Bull.
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