Marko: 'Hamilton is cunning and has taken a lot of time to do that!'

It seemed that Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen would win the very first Grand Prix of 2021, but unfortunately for them it wasn't to be. According to Helmut Marko it was because of the vague rules on the one hand and Hamilton's clever approach on the other.

During qualifying, race control was very clear, emphasising anyone going four wheels into turn four would have their time removed. But outside of that session, there was a lot of ambiguity about the rules around the corner, something the Mercedes team took great advantage of.

"If you look at the whole thing, you have to say that, I don't know how many exactly, but that Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas have come out of turn four at least five or six times with all four wheels at the request or Mercedes. Those guys win about two tenths there every time," Helmut Marko told Motorsport-Total.com .

Smart move by Hamilton

Mercedes' strategy created question marks, leading the Red Bull Racing team to seek an answer from race control. "We asked if that was allowed and then they said 'actually not'. But it's such a fuzzy thing, so there was no penalty for it."

The situation became even more vexing for Red Bull Racing when Max Verstappen also went off the track when attempting to overtake Hamilton.

"With Max, they were very clear then, we had to give the spot back to Hamilton. He is of course very cunning and it took him a relatively long time to overtake Max again. As a result his tyres had cooled down a bit, while Max's had become dirty from the dirt. Together with the slip in turn 13 this prevented him from overtaking Lewis," Marko concluded.