{"id":15267,"date":"2025-04-13T01:47:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T01:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/15267\/"},"modified":"2025-04-13T01:47:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T01:47:13","slug":"verstappen-and-marko-issue-identical-two-word-red-bull-verdict-at-bahrain-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/15267\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen and Marko issue identical two-word Red Bull verdict at Bahrain GP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen and Helmut Marko are very much aligned with their verdict on Red Bull after Bahrain GP Friday practice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And that verdict is that Red Bull<\/a> are \u201ctoo slow\u201d, after Verstappen ended the opening day of track action eighth-tenths off the blistering pace of McLaren.<\/p>\n

Verstappen and Marko on same page: Red Bull \u2018too slow\u2019 in Bahrain?<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/p>\n

After converting a shock pole into a first F1 2025 win last weekend in Japan, Verstappen and Red Bull carried a great deal of momentum into Bahrain, though McLaren were quick to make a statement with Oscar Piastri heading a dominant one-two for the team in FP2, a tenth-and-a-half up on McLaren team-mate Lando Norris.<\/p>\n

The nearest challenger to McLaren was Mercedes\u2019 George Russell, half a second off Piastri\u2019s pace, while Verstappen was eight tenths adrift and Yuki Tsunoda seven tenths further back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are too slow,\u201d was the blunt assessment from Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko when he spoke to the media, including PlanetF1.com, after FP2, but it was a verdict which Verstappen fully shares.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo grip. Yeah, just difficult,\u201d he began in reflection of his day, Verstappen having returned to the Red Bull cockpit for FP2 after Ayumu Iwasa took his place for a rookie FP1 outing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, took like, one lap, two laps, to get into it. But, I mean, still, the gap was quite massive.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, not entirely happy, just struggling a lot with grip, feeling. In general, the balance wasn\u2019t too bad, but just, yeah, off.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd quite a bit of work to do also in the long run.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just too slow, basically, every lap. And it was not, honestly, not a lot of fun out there in the long run. So a bit of drift practice there at the end as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

After an FP2 session which focused on running the soft Pirelli tyre for Verstappen, he was asked to explain that approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s just how we planned the run,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom FP1, with Ayumu in the car, and then me in FP2, just to see how they would hold up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrari upgrades under microscope in Bahrain<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Ferrari update data revealed: True progress or just an illusion?<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Ferrari SF-25 upgrades explained with significant new floor on the list in Bahrain<\/a><\/p>\n

While the final gap to McLaren on Friday was daunting, Norris was very clear after the session in stating that the timesheets mean nothing, and that McLaren are not actually the class of the field in Bahrain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t think they turned up,\u201d he said of the competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone just looks at the timesheets. They have no idea about the information on who turns up, who doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like three-and-a-half, four tenths around here. So that puts us immediately back in the same position as the Mercedes, so at the minute I wouldn\u2019t say we\u2019re any quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as for Red Bull\u2019s true deficit to McLaren, Verstappen is not too optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s big, yeah,\u201d he said of Red Bull\u2019s gap to McLaren.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a bit of a different approach to our Friday, so I think this gap is very big.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next: Red Bull\u2019s Bahrain GP practice struggles trigger \u2018impossible\u2019 Horner verdict<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen and Helmut Marko are very much aligned with their verdict on Red Bull after Bahrain GP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4203,227,225,1073,12,226,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-15267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-bahrain-grand-prix","9":"tag-helmut-marko","10":"tag-home-page","11":"tag-max-verstappen","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-red-bull","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114328138295297801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}