Marko: 'Mercedes sacrificed Bottas for second place Hamilton'

Helmut Marko has reiterated that Mercedes simply sacrificed its driver Valtteri Bottas to provide Lewis Hamilton with a good starting position in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. According to the Red Bull Racing advisor, Hamilton would never have been able to set a second time without the slipstream from Bottas.

Marko did praise Mercedes to Sky's German arm. "They have recovered well and worked super hard," however, a 'but' followed: "You have to put it in perspective. Bottas sacrificed his lap and helped Hamilton get a good lap in the slipstream. That means he won about four, five tenths in sector three."

Tyre strategy very important

At Red Bull, they're fairly frustrated with all the crashes and red flags in qualifying, but the Austrian team knows that Sunday is unlikely to be much different. "As you've seen here, it's going to be a race with a lot of incidents and then you have to be prepared for the tyre strategy."

The entire top-ten will start tomorrow on the soft tyres. Due to the interruptions, nobody dared to try anything on the yellow, medium compound in Q2.