Marko denies Verstappen ’go slow’ conspiracy theory

Dr Helmut Marko has rejected a theory that Max Verstappen drove deliberately slowly at Zandvoort to give the Red Bull factory a wake-up call.

On the face of it, McLaren’s Lando Norris simply outclassed the entire field in the Dutch GP - winning by the huge margin of almost 23 seconds over the once-dominant Red Bull.

After the chequered flag, Max’s mercurial father Jos re-opened his line of attack against team boss Christian Horner, slamming the gap of "over 20 seconds (as) a huge disappointment" and insisting "it’s time" Red Bull took action.

"The good people are leaving the team," Jos told Bild newspaper. "I’m very unhappy with what’s happening because Max cannot be happy with a car like this.

"Now it is up to Horner to get the team back on track. I’ll be surprised if he does."

Toto Wolff has now given up on securing Verstappen’s signature on a Mercedes contract for 2025, but talks are clearly still taking place with the triple world champion’s management camp.

Speaking with the Inside Line podcast, Red Bull F1 team consultant Dr Helmut Marko didn’t even deny that Verstappen’s management met with Mercedes over the summer break, insisting it’s "just natural" that Monaco residents bump into each other.

"Jos is a bigger fan of Toto than he is of Christian," the 81-year-old also said.

As for the theory that Verstappen deliberately drove slowly at Zandvoort, it was first forwarded by British F1 commentator Martin Brundle, who works for Sky UK.

"He knew he couldn’t beat Lando and dropping back a bit like that, it’s going to give the factory a hurry up, isn’t it?" he said. "I’d be pretty sure of that."

Marko dismissed the claim in his latest column for Speed Week.

"Martin Brundle’s assumption that Max was deliberately driving slowly is incorrect. You can’t say that," said the Austrian.

"When he saw that Lando was on the move, he stopped taking risks. But the difference to (Sergio) Perez was simply that he was driving with a different setup. We thought that with more downforce, Max would slide less.

"But it just made him vulnerable at top speed, and tyre wear was still high," Marko added.

Horner this week suggested that McLaren in particular, but also Mercedes, have recently sped up thanks to an innovative front wing design philosophy.

"The McLaren and Mercedes wings bend at a completely different angle than the others," said the Red Bull team boss. "The way they use the front wing is very different.

"You’re always trying to find out where your rivals have found their performance and I think the front wing is key."

Marko, though, isn’t so sure. "Norris’ fastest lap without DRS right at the end shows how superior Lando was," he said. "That means a lot of work and a lot of thinking for us.

"But it’s not so much about simply finding new parts. We need the predictability of the car that we had at the start of the season again," Marko added.

"It’s also nothing to do with the setup, it’s more that something came along with the new parts that turned the balance into a negative one."