For colliding with George Russell, the Red Bull driver received a 10-second time penalty and three penalty points on his super license, leaving him one away from a race suspension.

Talking on the Austrian programme called Sport und Talk aus dem Hangar-7 on Servus TV, the top advisor reflected on the incident what happened.

“When Max is in such a mood – so fired up – then it's best to just leave him alone,” the 82-year-old began.

Marko also acknowledges that the Verstappen can also partly be frustrated because of the underperforming RB21. “At this moment, our car is not competitive, we have to be honest. Max has to drive absolutely on the limit every lap. Even Tsunoda is struggling now, only Max can still do this.”

The RB21 should now have a wider operating window, but that proves not to be the case so far. “For us, the car is good in one out of three or four races. For McLaren, it's every race like that. The gap is big.”

Yet, Marko also referred to an impressive comeback by Sebastian Vettel: “At that time, I believe we had a 47 points deficit. But if something doesn't happen soon, it will be difficult.”

While some in the media believe Verstappen will potentially end up using an exit clause, GPblog could reveal before the Spanish Grand Prix that the four-time world champion will stay loyal to Red Bull Racing.

Marko also dismissed the events will Barcelona will have an effect on that.

“In each country, an alleged clause has been announced,” he laughed. “That is absurd. Max would have made it all much easier if he really wanted to leave.”

He concluded with also pointing to the history between Verstappen and Russell. “He's already had issues with Russell, something happened earlier already. Due to many incidents and wrong decisions, emotions overflowed this time."