Helmut Marko’s critical Max Verstappen admission as grid penalty looms

Max Verstappen speaking with Helmut Marko in the Red Bull garage

Red Bull’s Helmut Marko has conceded victory for Max Verstappen will be very difficult after going the wrong direction with car setup.

Having topped the timesheets in first practice at Spa-Francorchamps, Verstappen wound up in third by the end of the day as the two McLarens ended up setting the pace.

Max Verstappen to take grid penalty for Belgian Grand Prix

On Friday, the FIA confirmed the suspicion that Max Verstappen was to take a grid penalty at Spa-Francorchamps as Red Bull fitted his RB20 with a fifth power unit of the year.

Automatically triggering a 10-place grid penalty as the allowance for a season is just four engines, the best grid position Verstappen can now hope for is 11th-place should he succeed in taking pole position on Saturday.

Having easily topped the times in first practice, before being pipped by both McLarens in FP2 as Verstappen finished just over two-tenths of a second off the pace set by Lando Norris, Helmut Marko explained Red Bull had gone the wrong way with setup from the first session to the second.

“We changed the setup from the morning – I believe the setup in the morning was better. It’s tough, what we had,” he told PlanetF1.com after practice.

It’s not the first time Verstappen has served a grid penalty in Belgium, having taken a five-place grid penalty in 2023 and starting from 14th on the grid for the 2022 event.

These setbacks didn’t stop Verstappen from romping to victory in both races, but Marko doubts such highs are possible this year.

“It will be very difficult, I think it’s far more difficult,” he said.

“It doesn’t look like it at the moment. But let’s see if we can make changes.

“[We’re not so much worried about McLaren’s pace], it’s just to find the right balance in the car, we are the only ones who can go with the McLarens, which is okay.”

With Sergio Perez ending the day a second off the pace of Verstappen, starting off what is understood to be a critical weekend to decide the Mexican’s future with Red Bull, Marko confirmed the two drivers had different approaches to the day.

“I mean, it’s not the final qualification, but they had different setups so it’s difficult to compare,” he said.

Perez is expected to pull out a big performance for Red Bull this weekend if he is to stay in his cockpit for the second half of the season, with his performance relative to Verstappen – rather than the final result – said to be the deciding factor.

As for what Marko wants to see from Perez ahead of the summer break before he and team boss Christian Horner meet to discuss what might come next for the Red Bull driver line-up, the Austrian said the benchmark isn’t particularly high.

“That he is closer to Max, or that he gets reasonable points.”

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Belgian GP: McLaren strike back against Max Verstappen as Sergio Perez struggles

Max Verstappen: We started off quite positively

Reflecting on his day behind the wheel of the RB20 at Spa, Verstappen said the changes made to the car had taken things in the wrong direction – but he’s hopeful of being able to pull it all back together before the important timed sessions.

“We tried quite a few things because it’s typical Spa where you have the Sector One and Sector Three where you want the top speed,” he said.

“But still have a very long middle sector where you want cornering speed and it’s always very tricky to find the right balance.

“So we’re trying a few things to see what is better. We’ll look at it of course now in the data and just analyse the day – I think we started off quite positive today.

“Second practice was maybe not as good, so we have a few things to look at with all the changes that we made as well.

“Hopefully, we can all put it together for the race, especially because I know that, of course, I have to start a bit back with my penalty with the engine and try to optimise it.”

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