Helmut Marco did not deal with Max Barstappen’s controversial incident with George Russell at the F1 Spanish Grand Prix, but hinted at “constant frustration” that clouded the four-time world champion.
The main topic from Sunday’s race at the Barcelona Catalña circuit was a seemingly intentional clash with Russell in Barstappen.
The race lifted his head after the safety car as Verstappen was forced to run on hard tyres.
Red Bull chose to put Verstappen on a 3-stop strategy, meaning the software was gone.
On the hard, Verstappen became vulnerable and Russell was quickly overtaken by Charles Leclerc and tried to overtake him, but in turn 1 he drove Barstappen away.
Verstappen stayed on track and maintained position, accidentally telling Red Bull to let the star driver pass Russell.
This led to a controversial moment when Verstappen clashed with Russell in five turns.
Talked to Sky Germany after the race, Marco did not refer directly to the incident.
“You’ll say he’s been driving for a long time ago, and because of this tire choice,” Marco said.
“But like I said, we had nothing else and we didn’t know that this tire would get that bad in the warm-up phase. There was a certain amount of frustration, and it expressed itself in the driving style.”
Marco admits that the hard tires were “wrong”
The timing of the safety car meant that Red Bull was in a tricky position.
They may have protected Verstappen to worn soft and given the track position above the McLarens.
Instead, they placed him on hard hard tires that were not using teams that weren’t using in the 66-lap race.
The stiff tires made warming up difficult, so Verstappen had a huge oversteer moment at the exit of the final corner.
This made him the third sacrifice after briefly touching on the starting straight.
“We realized we had to take risks to get a chance,” Marco explained.
“That was three seats. Unfortunately, the safety car got in the way at the end.
“We only had hard tires left, but that was definitely the wrong tire, and that tire was especially bad during the warm-up.
“And we saw the evasive operation of Max (after a reboot). But that’s how it goes: if you take the risk, it can also go the other way.
“Max clearly saw that there was no grip due to the bad tires. And he lost almost control. And there was a Leclerc situation. I don’t want to go into detail about this either.”