Max Verstappen has dismissed Helmut Marko’s comments suggesting that his interest in Formula 1 dipped as Red Bull’s performance also sank earlier in the season.
Asked directly about whether he agreed with the adviser’s comments ahead of the 2025 Mexican Grand Prix, Verstappen quickly shot the idea down.
“No, I don’t,” he confirmed. “Of course it’s more enjoyable coming to the race weekends like this than knowing that you don’t have a chance to win, but I know for myself that when I sit in the car I will always try to maximise everything that I have and I give it everything.
“So even if I’m fighting for P4 or even a P9, I will always try to get the best out of it.”
Marko also stated that Verstappen “was more interested in GT racing, so to keep him in a good mood, I was talking about Nürburgring and things like that.”
The four-time champion shot this down, too.
“Allowing me to do other stuff, this has been planned already for a long time so it’s not that this has suddenly come on the radar because these things have to be planned well in advance and the preparation for it as well so that it allowed me this year to compete myself in real life,” the Dutchman said. “Yeah, that was the first opportunity but I’ve been doing this also offline a lot, even racing during F1 weekends online so there’s nothing really that has changed in terms of how professional I approach my race weekends.”
Lando Norris, McLaren, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images
This weekend, the Red Bull driver looks to continue his recent boost in performance after a perfect weekend in Austin. While McLaren’s Oscar Piastri still leads Verstappen by 40 points, the reigning champion is now a favourite to win the drivers’ championship this season.
“Of course naturally you want to win, you want to win the championship, of course I’ve won championships very late, very early. Now this one is very different because I think for most of the season it was a lot harder for us, and to be honest with you, to still be in this fight is very surprising. But I take it and now like I said before we need to be perfect, but for me it’s just positive pressure.
“I mean, I’m loving what I’m doing. If the car is competitive, it’s much better to be racing it than when it’s not. So yeah, every race that you do, I know until the end we can’t afford any bad luck or mistakes, but this team I think has shown in the past that normally we perform really well under pressure anyway and that’s what we’ll try to do until the end.”
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