For Marko, Red Bull's deficit is measured at "two or three tenths" compared to McLaren.

Among the four Top Teams of the Formula 1, Red Bull is the team that gave the worst impression against McLaren, Mercedes et Ferrari during the winter tests in Bahrain at the end of February. In addition to being the team that completed the fewest laps over the three days of testing, weighed down by a few technical glitches, the Austrian team did not shine in the race simulations, despite a fairly decent best time (4th time, two tenths behind the best time set by Carlos Sainz). At the end of these pre-season tests, many agree that Red Bull will start with a slight handicap against the three other teams at the top of the table, especially against McLaren. A feeling that Helmut Marko does not refute.

"In my opinion it will be a three or four-way battle between McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and us. But if you look at the test results, McLaren already has a head start, recognizes Red Bull's special advisor from Sport.de. This was the case in both the short and long runs. It is not yet alarming. We have made progress, but the current favourite is clearly McLaren. Only on Wednesday were we level with McLaren. But on Friday, the last day, I would say our deficit in the long runs was two to three tenths of a second. In addition, McLaren's tyre wear was also significantly better than our data indicated.

Marko “not disappointed” with the RB21, but…

Present in the Red Bull garage in Sakhir, Helmut Marko – who was seen very studious in front of the control screens – remained quite discreet in Bahrain, like his team. If the 81-year-old ex-driver admits that his team will not be the reference of the grid in 2025, the Austrian nevertheless emphasizes that he is not "not disappointed" of the new Red Bull RB21… without being really convinced, at least for the moment. "It would have been nice if our adaptations and innovations worked immediately. (…) The car is more predictable. It reacts to technical things as it should. It's not the arbitrary behavior we had last year."

Helmut Marko explained that most of the new parts introduced are the Red Bull RB21 which have given satisfaction to the Austrian clan, but others "didn't work" during winter testing. "This means that there is still room for development and improvement within what is possible with existing hardware, says Red Bull's special advisor, who hopes that his star driver will be able to make up for the RB21's shortcomings with his driving skills. If the car is not optimal, then we have the wildcard Max [Verstappen], who must then call upon his driving talent. (…) With their car, McLaren is the favourite everywhere.

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