Marko Relieved Red Bull Upgrade ‘Works As Expected’

Red Bull’s biggest car upgrade of the season “does what it’s supposed to,” relieved team advisor Dr Helmut Marko declared after practice in Hungary.

Actually, Max Verstappen – with the full update as opposed to teammate Sergio Perez – was a quarter of a second slower than McLaren’s Lando Norris.

But Marko told Viaplay at the Hungaroring: “On the long runs, we were the fastest.

“We are already noticing a difference compared to the other updates we had,” the Austrian added. “Those updates were a lot smaller and showed little effect.

“But with the rules we have now, we are almost at the ceiling in terms of development.”

Marko said he is not overly concerned that Norris ended Friday with the fastest time.

“Firstly, McLaren revved the engine to full and we didn’t. And secondly, Max made a mistake in turn 2.”

He revealed that Perez has “90 percent” of the upgrade up and running on the sister car, and was just a couple of tenths off Verstappen’s pace.

When asked why Perez is suddenly back on the pace as rumours swirl around his immediate future at Red Bull, Marko smiled: “He told me that he’s just come back from vacation. Apparently that helped.”

Ferrari’s updated floor, meanwhile, appears to have eliminated the team’s ‘bouncing’ problem, even though Charles Leclerc’s poor run of recent form continued with a practice crash.

“People joked after Monaco that they jumped into the harbour after their victory there but never resurfaced,” Marko joked to Kronen Zeitung newspaper.

“But the circuit seems to suit them here. We have four teams on relatively equal terms.”