Marko delighted with Verstappen: 'Max factor was just around the corner'

Red Bull Racing has always been strong in the race over the last three years, but last year it was sometimes too easy in qualifying. It was not as simple as in 2023 in Bahrain, said Marko.

"We realised here that our superior performance was no longer," Marko begins to tell German Motorsport-Magazin.com. "We found out that the track temperature was five to six degrees lower and could not translate this one-to-one to the performance of the tyres. We worked on that for two practice days and eventually the Max factor came."

Sergio Perez starts from fifth position on Saturday. He was still ahead of Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Carlos Sainz. Next to him, Fernando Alonso starts in sixth place in the Aston Martin.