Helmut Marko slams Martin Brundle’s ‘not correct’ Max Verstappen conspiracy theory

Max Verstappen plugs his ears at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Claiming that Max Verstappen slowed on purpose at the Dutch GP to send a message to Red Bull, this Martin Brundle conspiracy is “not correct” insisted Helmut Marko.

Launching from the front row at Zandvoort, Verstappen was able to take the lead from polesitter Lando Norris and held onto it until Lap 18, at which point Norris made his way back into P1 and would disappear up the road from there.

Helmut Marko on Martin Brundle’s Max Verstappen theory: ‘You can’t say that’

Additional reporting by Pablo Hidalgo

Norris’ final margin of victory was a whopping 23 seconds, though Sky F1 pundit Brundle put forward his theory that this gap was not a true reflection of the speed difference between Norris and Verstappen. With Red Bull having seen their dominance evaporate, Brundle reckoned Verstappen slowed to give the Red Bull factory a “hurry up” to address the situation.

“I would hazard a guess that that was not as fast as Max could go,” Brundle claimed.

“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? I’d be pretty sure of that.”

Marko was not best pleased with that Brundle “assumption”. While the Red Bull senior advisor admitted that Verstappen opted against taking any “risks” after Norris had overtaken, to say he had slowed on purpose was simply “not correct” in Marko’s view.

“Martin Brundle’s assumption that Max was driving slowly on purpose is not correct, you can’t say that,” Marko wrote in his Speedweek column.

“But when he saw that Lando was on the move, he didn’t take any more risks.”

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Verstappen went on to claim a comfortable P2 ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was showered in gratitude by Marko after holding off McLaren’s Oscar Piastri for that final podium spot.

Had Piastri completed that move, then Marko feared a McLaren one-two was very much possible.

“Before the race, I thought that it would be almost impossible to overtake in Zandvoort because of the previous GP in Spa. That’s why I also assumed that if Max won the start, there was a chance of winning the race,” Marko stated.

“But there were quite a few overtaking manoeuvres, for example by Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri. Norris also passed Max Verstappen on the 18th lap when Max’s tyres collapsed and the usual problem occurred and the car went from understeer to oversteer. This made it impossible to match Norris’ times.

“We also feared that Piastri would catch Max, because he is very fast. But then, thank God, he was stuck behind Charles Leclerc. I’m not quite sure why that was, because he was one second faster than Max before he met Leclerc and couldn’t get past. We are very grateful to Leclerc for holding him off.”

Verstappen would confirm that he eased off after Norris had passed, but in-keeping with Marko’s theory, said he did so to make it to the end with the race win out of reach, rather than as a way of sending any message to Red Bull.

Speaking to DAZN Spain, Verstappen said: “I’m not really surprised by what [McLaren] were doing. We just have to do it a little bit better.

“Today again was very difficult. I struggled a lot with the balance and I couldn’t really execute anything it was just not working.

“I tried to do the racing lines that I wanted to do but the car wasn’t responding. Bad tyre wear also. It was a bad feeling. It felt like the car did not react.

‘The gap behind was also going up and down all the time, so I knew it was completely over with five laps to go so I got off a bit of the throttle to just bring it to the end.

“There was nothing really left to gain. We had to consolidate that P2. It could have been much worse. If being P2 means being sad, I’ll take that.”

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