Red Bull Sees Hope for Verstappen at Monza, Wary of McLaren Pace

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has expressed cautious optimism regarding Max Verstappen's performance at Monza, noting a significant improvement from the team's struggles a year ago. Despite McLaren's strong showing, Marko believes Verstappen could be competitive.

Why it matters

Last year, Max Verstappen described his RB20 as an "undriveable monster" at Monza, raising concerns for his championship aspirations. This year, even after Friday practice, Marko sees encouraging signs, suggesting Red Bull may not face the same dominance from McLaren that was seen at Zandvoort.

The details

• Verstappen finished sixth quickest in Friday practice, trailing pacesetter Lando Norris by two-tenths of a second. He was also just 0.018s behind championship leader Oscar Piastri.
• Crucially, the RB21 showed strong long-run pace, a key indicator for race performance.
• Marko told Sky DE: "We are very satisfied. In contrast to last year, there is a clear improvement. The long run was very good, but on the softs we still need to improve a bit for qualifying."
• He added a warning about McLaren: "However, the gap is not drastic. If McLaren doesn't put sand in our eyes, it could be very exciting."
• Verstappen did report some issues to engineer Gianpiero Lambiase during the sessions, but Marko explained these were part of testing limits: "We tried things and went to the limit. That means we can test the limit faster and in terms of direction [of the setup] we're not as far off as sometimes in the past."

What's next

Red Bull's focus now is on optimizing the tire working window. Marko is confident they know where to intervene, viewing the current deficit of just under two tenths as encouraging. The team aims to fine-tune the RB21 for qualifying and the race, hoping to challenge McLaren for top positions.