Red Bull didn't need Leclerc to drop out: 'We had the fastest cars'

Helmut Marko believes that Red Bull Racing would have had a good chance of victory in Barcelona even without Charles Leclerc' s retirement. The RB18 would have been the fastest car at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Red Bull Racing scored its second 1-2 of this season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Max Verstappen grabbed the victory and Sergio Perez finished second. The third placed George Russell was driven far behind and Leclerc retired at the lead of the race. Still, Marko thinks Red Bull's dropping out of Leclerc was not necessary for the victory.

''In terms of speed, we were clearly better than the Ferraris in the race,'' Marko claimed to ORF. In the early stages of the GP, Leclerc and Verstappen were still riding close together, but after a trip into the gravel trap by Verstappen, he had ended up behind George Russell. Leclerc therefore seemed to be driving to victory with ease.

The dropout threw a spanner in the works for the Monegasque, but Marko doubts even that Leclerc would have won without a dropout. ''At the moment we were driving at full power, we clearly had the fastest cars on the grid. However, that does not take away from the fact that we were lucky that Leclerc had retired,'' the Austrian concludes to Sky.