Where Max Verstappen managed to take his eighth pole position of the season in Zandvoort, teammate Sergio Pérez has to make do with seventh place on the grid. Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko supports his Mexican driver, as he emphasizes Auto Motor and Sport that everything is still clear for 2024.
The drivers and teams had to deal with typical Dutch weather during qualifying for the race in Zandvoort. Where the session started with some rain, it got drier as the session progressed. These were circumstances that were very treacherous and not everyone could handle them equally well. Verstappen also had to admit that he thought pole position was out of the question, but when the flag fell he was still the fastest man.
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Strategy should help ‘Checo’
Pérez will start the Dutch Grand Prix from P7 and Marko points to the possibilities. “It will probably be a two-stop race. That opens up strategic options for us to move Sergio forward,” the 80-year-old adviser explains. The circuit in Zandvoort is quite narrow and outside the ideal line there are very few places to overtake. Marko therefore hopes that the strategy will be decisive. In the 2023 season, there has been a lot of talk about Pérez’s position and his future at Red Bull, but Marko confirms that the result in qualifying has not changed the direction: “Everything is clear for 2024.”
Wolff calls difference ‘bizarre’
Nevertheless, the mutual difference between the Red Bull Racing duo has also raised some eyebrows among the competition. Toto Wolff saw Lewis Hamilton lag behind in Q2, but has chances for a good result with George Russell in P3. However, he also has an opinion about the form of Pérez. “Pérez is not a ‘baker’. He is a multiple Grand Prix winner who knows how to drive fast. So it is difficult to understand why the gap is so big. On the other hand, we have seen Max destroy all his previous teammates “Maybe it’s because he builds the car around his preferences. It’s tough to drive, but he can handle it.”
2023-08-27 07:20:05
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