Helmut Marko’s Red Bull ‘jeopardy’ warning as McLaren Monza prediction made

Helmut Marko has warned Red Bull the championship titles are on the line

Once again dropping points to McLaren in Zandvoort, Helmut Marko admits Red Bull are in “jeopardy” of losing the championship if the situation continues.

McLaren outscored Red Bull for the fourth race in a row as Lando Norris shattered Max Verstappen’s Dutch Grand Prix winning streak when he took the chequered flag almost 23 seconds ahead of the Dutchman.

Helmut Marko: If things continue like this, then the championship is in jeopardy

With Oscar Piastri P4 on the day and Sergio Perez once again failing to bring in the big points, McLaren now sit just 30 points behind Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship.

Verstappen’s lead in the Drivers’, although still considered to be a healthy one, is down to 70 points.

The latter means even if Norris wins every one of the last nine races, Verstappen only has to finish P2 to his good friend to retain the title for a fourth successive season.

But given that any sort of title fight was unexpected after he started the season with four wins in five races, Marko admits anything could yet happen as the current trend does not look good for Red Bull who have fallen behind McLaren in F1 2024’s development race.

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“We’ll see how it goes in Monza, of course I expect McLaren to be strong again,” he told Speedweek. “But I hope that we can become more equal and fight for the win, because in Zandvoort you have to admit that we were outclassed.

“If things continue like this, then the championship is in jeopardy.

“But we believe that, on the one hand, this was a track that suited McLaren perfectly in terms of layout. On the other hand, the temperatures were also low, so everything fitted together.

“But it’s quite clear that we have to get the car back into balance, our updates have to be effective, they have to deliver something not only in theory but also on the stopwatch.

“But we have a strong team and that’s why I’m confident that something will come of it.”

The Red Bull team boss concedes Red Bull need to improve the RB20 having made a misstep with the car’s balance when they upgraded it at the Hungarian Grand Prix, much to Verstappen’s frustration as he told the team to “wake up”.

“We have to get the balance back into the car,” Marko stated. “We are working hard, but it is difficult to say exactly how much new work will be done on the car and when.

“We simply have to find our way back, because until the race in Shanghai or Suzuka we had a car that was superior and optimised in terms of balance. If we can just get that back, then the drivers’ confidence will be back, the car will slide less and tyre wear will be more moderate.

“So 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. It’s also nothing to do with the set-up, rather something has come along with the new parts that has changed the balance for the worse.”

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