Outspoken Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko has had quite a lot to say in the aftermath of the frist Formula 1 pre-season test in Barcelona, giving a thumbs up to the new cars, quietly confident about his own team, acknowledging that Mercedes are still the team to beat and wondering out aloud about Ferrari.
Speaking to Auto Motor und Sport, Marko said, “The cars look really aggressive again. The cornering speeds are incredibly fast, but the engines still don’t make the right sound.”
He further observed, “Turn 1 through to Turn 3 is where you can see with the naked eye the differences between the individual cars. The drivability of the [Mercedes] engine and the packaging is incredible.”
Marko also revealed that Red Bull have still not turned up the wick on their power unit, “We are still driving with conservative mappings. Let’s see how it looks when we drive at full power.”
And added, “You can hear that Mercedes is doing the same thing, and their V6 turbo is still far from the limit.”
After the four days of testing in Spain, it appears that Ferrari have a strong and reliable package, but Marko is wary of reading too much into the performance shown by the Italian team.
Marko said, “It depends on how much fuel they have on board. Watching Vettel when he braked into the first corner [Wednesday], there could not have been much fuel in the tank.”
Many believe that Adrian Newey’s full blown edition of the Red Bull RB13 will only break cover in Melbourne, the team opting to run an interim package during testing. Significant tweaks and changes are expected for the Australian Grand Prix at the end of the month.
But Marko played down the theory, and said with a grin, “Our car is beautiful. And normally beautiful cars are fast. Why should we change anything?”
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