Marko suspicious: "Very sporting of the Mercedes team"

Helmut Marko has been critical of Mercedes and Sebastian Vettel after the qualifying session for the Portuguese Grand Prix. The Red Bull Racing advisor suspects Toto Wolff's team did some whispering to McLaren during Q3 and Sebastian Vettel did not pay enough attention to Max Verstappen who was on a fast lap during the second run.

At ServusTV, Marko is a little frustrated with Mercedes' handling. "In the second run they tell Lando Norris not to do Max any favours - so very sporting of the Mercedes team," said Marko, who was also not entirely happy with Vettel's performance. "Sebastian was obviously busy making sure he kept his car on the road. So it went a bit unfortunate overall."

Marko is a little worried

Both Verstappen and Perez will start on mediums tomorrow, as will their two Mercedes rivals on the front row of the grid. In qualifying, at least, the German formation was a lot faster than the RB16B on the yellow marked tyres. "I am worried about our performance on the mediums, we were not competitive there. We hope it will change with full tanks and the warm-up behaviour of the rubber will be different," stated Marko.

The Portuguese Grand Prix starts at 15:00 Sunday afternoon. Verstappen will have to finish higher than Lewis Hamilton if he wants to become the first Dutchman ever to lead the Formula One World Championship.