Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko expects Max Verstappen to have his elbows out during the opening phases of Formula 1‘s Qatar Grand Prix.
Verstappen needs to jump Lando Norris at the chequered flag during the 57-lap race at the Lusail International Circuit to keep his title hopes alive going to Abu Dhabi.
However, starting from the second row of the grid, after qualifying third on Saturday, the Dutchman needs to make his move on the McLaren driver during the opening laps.
The Qatar circuit’s layout often makes overtaking a difficult task, something that Marko is sure Verstappen has in his mind.
“Certainly,” he told Sky Germany when asked if he was expecting the Dutchman to be bold on the first lap.
“And when you know Max is alongside you, most drivers get nervous.”
But while overtaking is “nearly impossible” as per the Austrian, he believes the 25-lap stint limit imposed by Pirelli might play into the hands of the Milton Keynes-based squad’s pit wall.
“Overtaking is nearly impossible,” he said. “I think you have to do it in the first corner or in the first two laps. But we have two stops and that offers some tactical possibilities.”
Marko also revealed that he was optimistic about Verstappen’s chances during the race.
After damaging his floor during Sprint qualifying on Friday, the team swapped the RB21’s floor, and it showed promise during the Sprint Race and qualifying on Saturday.
“We changed a lot. First of all, we put an [another] old floor, which was in better shape than the one that was damaged, and we made some other changes,” Marko explained.
“So we cured it and it showed. We had been more or less half a second behind the whole weekend. And now it’s only two tenths, so that makes us feel confident.
“I’m still optimistic because the difference on the Medium and Hard tyre was even less, so I believe in the race we could be competitive.”
McLaren wants a ‘two-horse race’ for title showdown at Abu Dhabi
If Norris is able to keep himself ahead of Verstappen, he would put the four-time F1 champion mathematically out of title contention heading into Abu Dhabi.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown hopes for exactly this. “Our goal is to make sure papaya wins this championship, so if we can finish where we’ve started here and just have it be a two-horse race in Abu Dhabi, that’s our goal,” he told F1TV.
On the other hand, Norris can wrap up his maiden F1 title at Qatar itself if he outscores team-mate Oscar Piastri by four points.
But with Piastri starting on pole, Brown has left it to the wisdom of his drivers to finalise the race order as long as it ends with a McLaren 1-2.
“If they want to reverse positions that’s up to them, I don’t care,” he added.
“It’s business as usual, they know the rules, we love watching them race, they race each other hard, they race each other cleanly, so, they know if they can kind of check out that we’ll be looking good in Abu Dhabi. But let’s see, they’ve got to do that first.”
Brown isn’t discounting Verstappen’s imminent threat either. Concurring with Marko, the American emphasised that the start of the Grand Prix on Sunday is something he wouldn’t want to miss.
“For sure, you know he [Verstappen] is going to try and lead into Turn 1, so I wouldn’t miss the start of tomorrow’s grand prix,” he concluded.
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