Marko laughs last: 'People had already doomed us'

Red Bull Racing dealt a sledgehammer blow to Ferrari in Baku. While the Italians head to Canada with a zero score, the Austrians grabbed the maximum 44 points. Both in the championship for drivers and constructors, the team of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez now has a huge lead.

As good as Red Bull is now, it was different after the first three Grands Prix of the season. At that time it was precisely Red Bull that, after, among other things, two lost races by Verstappen, was looking at a huge gap compared to Ferrari. After the race in Melbourne the difference between the two teams had increased to 49 points. Five races and five Red Bull victories later and Red Bull has turned that deficit into an 80 point lead. An impressive catch-up.

For Helmut Marko, therefore, the rule is who laughs last, laughs loudest. "Some people had already written us off," the Red Bull advisor explains to Servus TV. "When we were written off in April, there were still twenty races to go. I said then that there was still a long way to go." The 79-year-old Austrian was proven right.

Charles Leclerc suffered his second retirement in the last three races in Baku, something that happened to Verstappen precisely during the first three races of the season. "So we have a draw," Marko said of the dropouts at the two title contenders. However, he does think that Verstappen would have won the race even without Leclerc's failure.

Meanwhile, Marko once again sees Mercedes benefiting from the problems at Red Bull and Ferrari throughout the season. George Russell grabbed his third podium of the season already, with Lewis Hamilton behind him in fourth place. "You can see what is possible with consistency, as is the case with Mercedes. Russell is not as fast, but he is more consistent and therefore not far behind in the points." With 99 points, the Briton is fourth in the championship just seventeen points behind Leclerc.