McLaren's Zak Brown and Mercedes' Toto Wolff are deliberately trying to stir unrest at Red Bull, according to Dr. Helmut Marko.
As the rivalry between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris for the world championship heats up, Marko believes rival teams are now engaging in mind games.
There's been a back-and-forth on both technical innovations and steward decisions, but things escalated personally after Marko suggested that Norris lacked the same mental toughness as Verstappen and often faltered at the start of races. Norris again lost positions from pole at the start of the US GP, leading Osterreich newspaper to ask Marko if he felt his comments were validated.
"There was a big fuss again just because I said that Norris is a bad starter," Marko smiled, acknowledging that he had also discussed Norris' mental strength. "But I never talked about mental health," he clarified. "Only that Max is mentally stronger."
Brown had reacted to Marko's initial comments by accusing him of setting the mental health conversation in Formula 1 back decades. However, Marko firmly responded, "You can't twist the wording like that. That's a deliberate attempt to cause unrest. But we know the games played by Zak Brown. He deliberately stirs up trouble wherever he can."
Marko also claimed that Brown was often supported in his tactics by Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, who had controversially suggested that the FIA stewards, who penalized Norris for his Austin overtake on Verstappen, were biased in favor of Red Bull.
Marko refuted that, saying, "The stewards acted according to the rules. There is no room for criticism."
Marko added that Red Bull has a simple solution for track-limit issues, which led to Norris' penalty: "You just need to install something like what we did at the Red Bull Ring, where if you drive out there, you automatically lose time, and there is no subsequent drama with penalties."
Wolff had also criticized Red Bull's T-tray adjustment mechanism as "outrageous," but Marko downplayed the situation. "The FIA can take another look if they want to," he said. "All the teams have something like that in some form or another. It's just a device that makes it easier for the mechanics to adjust the ride height so that they don't have to spend ages installing and removing it."
Finally, with Verstappen's continuing dominant position in the championship, Marko was asked if his fourth consecutive title was now inevitable. "I said even before Austin that he would win the world championship," Marko replied. "Now it looks much better, even though we still have five races to go."
