[Team] Red Bull: Unbullievable

[MGDavid]

Marko is just wrong on so many levels

[S griffin]

He was already spewing nonsense a month ago saying Max could put a Haas or an Alpha Tauri on pole, but these comments on Checo are something else. Really is not helping himself here

[Richard C]

In general Marko reminds me of this...



He also seems to be guy who can be the inner voice of Red Bull that says things out loud when he shouldn't. So you get to peek inside the head of that organization. But it's also hard to figure out which parts is Red Bull Racing and which is crazy grandpa talking.

Serious question... Now that Dietrich Mateschitz has passed. Who runs the Red Bull sporting empire? Who does Marko report to? Who protects him when he makes dumb comments like this?

Richard

[fourWheelDrift]

Originally Posted by peebee2

I’m tempted to point out to him that Mexico is in North America.

As someone who spent over a year working on a massive IT implementation in the UK where 60% of the team were from Mexico I can absolutely confirm that:


1. It's a very common mistake, at least in this part of the world.


2. There are many Mexican people who find it extremely annoying.

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by Richard C

Who protects him when he makes dumb comments like this?

No who, what. Time. The passing of time.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

No who, what. Time. The passing of time.

Hope he can find the Mexican GP coming up!

[chunterer]

Isn't Mexico considered 'central america'??

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Isn't Mexico considered 'central america'??

Depends upon who is defining the boundaries and your personal perspective. Oddly enough from a UN perspective "North America" includes not just countries such as the US and Canada (Northern America), but also "Central America" (in which the UN places Mexico) and the Caribbean. But many might want a hard segregation between "North America" and "Central America" and in that situation, sometimes Mexico might be considered in Central America especially if your focus or perspective centers on culture and language from a "Latin America" perspective and less about pure geography.

But I would say in general (but not always) it is considered to be in "North America". Consider things like the now defunct "North America Free Trade Agreement" which was between Canada, US and Mexico.

Richard

[Alan52]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

Helmut Marko: "The Italian GP was surely one of Checo Perez‘s best weekends and we know about his problems in qualifying, which is where he has his doubts. Let’s remember that he is South American and so his head is not as focused as Max Verstappen or as Sebastian Vettel was"

So Senna lacked focus?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Alan52

So Senna lacked focus?

Yeah, as well as Fangio, Fittipaldi, Piquet.....

[Peter Mallett]

.... the Rodriguez brothers, Carlos Pace, Reuteman etc al.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Isn't Mexico considered 'central america'??

Don't think so. Just look at a map and see where the United Mexican States actually is.

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

Hope he can find the Mexican GP coming up!

Good one! May be we could suggest he could travel with Jeremy Clakson and pay the plane tickets with a brand new credit card (Gringo Express may be?).

[Richard C]

Apparently Marko has provided a totally unscripted and heartfelt apology. I fully believe that this was NOT written by the Red Bull PR team in conjunction with the HR department.

Apparently as the comments were on ServusTV that PR statement was was posted their website (I can't find the post at all). But multiple media sites are running the story with the quote. https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/ma...arks/10517836/

Text of the quote...

I would like to apologise for my offensive remark and want to make it absolutely clear that I do not believe that we can generalise about the people from any country, any race, any ethnicity. I was trying to make a point that Checo has fluctuated in his performance this year, but it was wrong to attribute this to his cultural heritage.

Richard

[Richard C]

I found this article to be interesting...

https://the-race.com/formula-1/marko...-have-to-stop/

It also talks to questions I had as to who is Marko's boss these days and why do they allow this type of behavior.

Richard

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Alan52

So Senna lacked focus?

According to Marko, Yes.
And that fellow Piquet, and the other one, what was his name....
Oh yes, Juan Manuel Fangio....

[bjohnsonsmith]

I've been reading a fair bit about Helmut Marko, like this article from GP Fans, since his recent xenophobic comments about Sergio Perez and his role within the Red Bull organisation, particularly as head of the Red Bull's Young Driver programme, with his ruthless approach to those drivers coming through it, as well as his forthright comments in the paddock when interviewed.

I wonder if his comments about Perez are a manifestation of his ruthlessness and forthrightness and if this all stems from his own racing career that was suddenly cut short and which he is still bitter about and therefore takes it out on the drivers?

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/10...-yuki-tsunoda/

[steve_r]

It's a PR disaster. Now RBR team are saying that they have not released an official statement because Marko is not employed by the team, but is instead employed by a different part of the RB organisation. What a weak and pathetic response, hiding behind a small details as to his employment contract.

No doubt that many people will make Hamilton to be the bad guy in all of this.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

I wonder if his comments about Perez are a manifestation of his ruthlessness and forthrightness and if this all stems from his own racing career that was suddenly cut short and which he is still bitter about and therefore takes it out on the drivers?

So hard to say without really knowing him. No doubt his prior F1 and racing experience (and circumstances that ended his driving career) factor in somewhere. But maybe he was just as ruthless before his injury? He also is clearly a product of his time/era as well.

When looking at his racing career, while he excelled at endurance racing, he was not as successful in F1. If he tried to enter F1 today with his track record of before, Marko would have cut himself from the racing program early on.

Richard

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Richard C

So hard to say without really knowing him. No doubt his prior F1 and racing experience (and circumstances that ended his driving career) factor in somewhere. But maybe he was just as ruthless before his injury? He also is clearly a product of his time/era as well.

When looking at his racing career, while he excelled at endurance racing, he was not as successful in F1. If he tried to enter F1 today with his track record of before, Marko would have cut himself from the racing program early on.

Richard

His F1 career was somewhat sporadic, only racing in 9 GPs over three years and never for a full season. Maybe '72 was going to be the breakthrough year, what with BRM giving him a better car. Either way, the accident at Clermont-Ferrand put an abrupt end to all of that and any future sports car success. Agreed, definitely a product of his time.

[chillibowl]

With a return to form for RB/Max in Japan, would it be valid to now chalk up their Singapore form(or lack of it) down to the distractions caused by the fallout from Marko’s comments?

Of course it’s incredibly difficult to maintain that level of excellence for extended periods of time and nothing lasts forever so inevitable that an uncharacteristically bad weekend would crop up, but when they needed unity and focus, Marko provided discord. Has he become the weak link for this squad?

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

With a return to form for RB/Max in Japan, would it be valid to now chalk up their Singapore form(or lack of it) down to the distractions caused by the fallout from Marko’s comments?

What? It was due to nature of the circuit meaning they had to raise their ride height!

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by peebee2

What? It was due to nature of the circuit meaning they had to raise their ride height!

My understanding as well. The higher ride height moved them out of their window of optimal performance. Running lower would have run risk of too much wear on legality plank.

Richard

[Born Racer]

Sergio Perez's season has completely imploded. He challenged Verstappen at times in the early part of the season, but has basically not only lost speed, but racecraft. He joins a long line of Red Bull number 2s to be outpsyched by the leader. It may not matter, you might say, as he is picking up points for the team, but not enough in my opinion and it is a waste of a seat. He finally got the penalty for his clumsy move on Magnussen for what he should have got for the Albon incident.

[Akrapovic]

His season has indeed imploded, but there's a bit of F1 perspective going on with it. Because you can look at his season and completely flip it around too:

He is currently sitting second in the championship, and is poised to give RBR its first ever 1-2 in the drivers championship - something they didn't manage even at the height of the Vettel dominance. It's safe to say his downfall begun at Monaco, 11 races ago. But in those 11 races, he has extended his second place in the championship 7 times out of the 11. And of the 4 times he didn't, one of them was Singapore where the car was no where.

He's still on for the best result ever for an RBR number 2. For a season that's imploded, helping achieve RBRs best ever result is pretty good.