Marko foresees important role for Perez: "Could give Max a good slipstream"

Helmut Marko looked back on Saturday with a degree of satisfaction, despite Red Bull Racing failing to secure pole position at Imola. For the first time in a long time the Austrian team could make things difficult for their Mercedes rivals in terms of strategy with two cars in the top three, against one from Mercedes.

Marko said earlier that he believes there are opportunities at the start for Perez and Verstappen. Speaking to Formel1.de, he explained: "If the start goes reasonably well, we should have two cars up front against one from Mercedes. Then we will use that position aggressively."

In the event that Perez is unable to overtake Lewis Hamilton at the start, Marko still sees "a couple of opportunities" for Red Bull: "He can give Max a good slipstream." It's suddenly a luxury of choices and possibilities for Red Bull, who have had to wait a long time for a starting line-up like this since the departure of Daniel Ricciardo.

What makes the battle up front even more interesting than it already was is the fact that they will be starting on different tyres, as the Mexican will be starting on softs. Marko explained: "It was clear that we needed him in Q3. To make sure that happens and so he can try as much as possible with the [soft] tyres, we said in Q2: okay, we'll do it here. It's also good for the strategy for tomorrow if we have two different tyres at the front."