Marko on Perez: 'He didn’t cope with Max’s speed’

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko kept a low profile about Red Bull driver Sergio Perez's race after the Japan Grand Prix. The Austrian did not mince words about his driver's race.

Perez had a dramatic race. The Mexican got off to a difficult start and soon suffered damage to his front wing. Moments later, he overtook a driver under the safety car, which earned him a time penalty. Moments later, the Red Bull driver took far too much risk fighting Kevin Magnussen, which earned him another penalty and a broken front wing.

Perez also had an unfortunate moment under a virtual safety car. On the restart, the six-time race winner rather ostentatiously held up Lando Norris, who was faster and lost a lot of time to race leader Max Verstappen. Speaking to Viaplay, the normally implacable Helmut Marko protected his driver: "That was an unlucky day. It started in practice where he didn't cope with the speed of Max, and in the race, everything went wrong, but I'm confident the next race he will be there again."