A friendly wager between Red Bull bosses turned into a cause for celebration. Dr. Helmut Marko, with a beaming smile, shared his joy over losing a 500 euro bet to fellow boss Christian Horner at the 2023 season finale in Abu Dhabi. “Christian said Max would qualify on the front row; I predicted the second row,” Marko recalled, noting Verstappen’s struggles in practice sessions.
In a thrilling twist, Verstappen, the triple world champion, clinched the top spot, outpacing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Marko, full of praise, said, “Our engineers did an incredible job because they made exactly the right adjustments in the small areas where they were still allowed to make changes.”
The 500 euros? “It will go towards an evening out, so that the engineers can have a fun evening on Sunday,” the 80-year-old Austrian revealed with another smile.
Marko reflected on Verstappen’s performance: “Max did an incredible performance again, where my predictions were completely wrong. But I’m happy when I’m so wrong when a result like that comes out in the end.”
A win for Verstappen would extend Red Bull’s tally to an extraordinary 21 victories out of 22 races. Marko was determined: “We want to get that. After the season we’ve had, you also want things to run optimally in the last race as well.”
Red Bull’s recovery at this challenging event was a source of concern for rivals. McLaren boss Andrea Stella observed, “The really impressive thing about Red Bull is not their speed, but their consistency. They deliver even on difficult days.”
Mercedes, grappling with its own issues, saw Lewis Hamilton miss Q3 in Abu Dhabi. Toto Wolff, the team boss, expressed his frustration: “I’m tired of explaining why everything went wrong. I’m just glad that this is the last qualifying of the season and the next one will be with a new car.”
Ferrari aimed to surpass Mercedes in the standings, with Leclerc stating, “Second in the constructors’ would be nice. Because in the drivers’, honestly, finishing fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, I don’t care.”
Ferrari’s plans to offer new deals to Leclerc and Sainz are believed to now be in the works. Boss Frederic Vasseur: “Charles had a bit of a difficult time coming back from the summer break. He came back very well. When he is not on pole, he is on the front row, which is very good for us. To have a leader like Charles who is pulling us along at the moment feels good.”
But with Red Bull’s dominance, Fernando Alonso predicted, “Red Bull’s dominance will last a while longer.” George Russell of Mercedes added, “We are changing a lot of little things. I can already see that in the wind tunnel. But Red Bull is so far ahead even though they stopped developing months ago. So they’re definitely going to take a big step.”
