Balance at the top
In the last two Grands Prix, held in Montreal and Barcelona, the Mercedes managed to secure two podium finishes, with George Russell in Canada and with Lewis Hamilton in Spain, joining Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren as the fourth team to achieve a top-3 finish in this first third of the season. This renewed balance at the topwhich has already seen four drivers from three different teams achieve success in 2024, is however paradoxically helping the reigning champions to defend their reign.
Verstappen and Red Bull have in fact achieved seven victories in 10 GPs, while Sainz, Norris and Leclerc divided the remainder. Mercedes could be the next team in contention to win a success: in both of the last Grands Prix George Russell found himself in command of the race during the first lap and the W15 finally seems to have found the right direction of technical development.
Marko’s thoughts on Mercedes and Max
Interviewed by the Austrian site OE24was the Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko to confirm without embarrassment the key to understanding why a strong Mercedes represents – at this moment of the season – an advantage for Max Verstappen and for once the market rumors have nothing to do with it: “If Mercedes gets to the front now, this will be very positive for us and for our world championship calculations“said Marko.
His reasoning is flawless: Verstappen is currently the world championship leader at +69 over Norris, but the Englishman and McLaren are proving to be competitive and fast on every track, as much as and more so than Red Bull. Having Mercedes and also Ferrari present in the fight at the top can ‘dilute’ the points even morepreventing Norris from starting a comeback attempt.
And then, in case of emergency, there is always the Max factor: “Bild has headlined ‘Verstappen faster than his own car’? It sums up the concept well – concluded Marko – Max wins because he is so confident, not because the car is particularly good“.
