Dr Helmut Marko is optimistic that Red Bull will be back at their peak this weekend in Suzuka.
Max Verstappen’s impressive series of ten consecutive victories was interrupted with an unanticipated downturn for the leading Formula 1 team in Singapore.
Interestingly, both Red Bull and even its direct competitors rejected the notion that this dip was related to the FIA’s new restrictions on flexible parts.
“I know you’d all like to blame it on that, but unfortunately we can’t,” said team boss Christian Horner. “We haven’t changed a single component on the car from Monza.
“We knew before the weekend that it would be closer in Singapore, but what actually happened was a surprise for us.”
Horner’s peer, Toto Wolff, noted that Singapore had previously posed challenges during Mercedes’ dominant spells.
“We know what it’s like to come to Singapore with a dominant car and then not perform,” said the Austrian.
“I’m sure it wasn’t the technical directives,” Wolff reiterated. “It didn’t change anything.”
The predominant alternate theory posits that Red Bull was simply unprepared for the new track surface’s smoothness and the removal of several turns from the earlier layout.
“We think we know roughly why we had these problems,” Red Bull’s Marko informed Bild newspaper.
“I am full of confidence after this performance that this mystery from qualifying will not arise in Suzuka,” he added.
He further stated that without the ill-timed deployment of the safety car, “Max would have won the race”.
“We are now looking forward to Suzuka because, as I said, we are understanding the problem,” Marko told Kronen Zeitung newspaper.
“That’s why we are fully optimistic that we’ll be able to bounce back there. The track there suits our car, but what makes me really positive is that we saw that our speed is already back.”
