Politics making life ’difficult’ for Red Bull - Marko

Dr Helmut Marko insists life in the F1 paddock for Red Bull has become "really difficult" in recent times.

The energy drink owned team has dominated the sport recent and is the reigning double champion, and according to owner Dietrich Mateschitz’s right-hand man, that is the source of the negative rumblings.

There have been suggestions of cost-agreement cheating, regular technical infringements, and at Valencia recently both Marko and Sebastian Vettel suggested that the safety car was deployed chiefly to spoil Vettel’s big lead.

Marko even intimated a double-standard had been applied when comparing Vettel’s drive-through penalty for using DRS in Barcelona to Michael Schumacher’s stewards escape last weekend.

"When you think about the course of a race weekend, it all sounds so nice and so simple, but it’s very different in reality," said the Austrian.

"There is so much politics involved," Marko told motorline.cc. "If Martin Whitmarsh wishes me a pleasant day, I get really nervous and wonder what is up."

He insisted that Red Bull’s place in the F1 paddock is a difficult one.

"The first reason is that we are not a car maker or a traditional racing car constructor. What hurts even more is that along with Ferrari we have reached a super deal with Bernie Ecclestone, and not just in the budget but also in the prestige.

"That’s why our life is really difficult at the moment," said Marko.