Marko on Perez: "Suspected consequential damage after incident yesterday"

F1 News

19 June 2022 at 21:45
  • GPblog.com

For Helmut Marko, the Canadian Grand Prix was one with two outcomes. Max Verstappen won and extended his lead over Ferrari in the world championship, but Sergio Perez retired due to a gearbox problem. This gave Ferrari the opportunity to catch up further in the constructors' championship.

"The gearbox broke. The gearbox was at the end of its run, but it should have held on. We suspect consequential damage from yesterday's incident, although the impact did not directly affect the gearbox. We have to investigate that. It's unfortunate," Marko concluded to Austrian television station ORF.

Verstappen wins again

Nevertheless, there were happy faces in the Red Bull camp afterwards, as Verstappen secured a sixth consecutive victory for the Austrians. Marko saw Verstappen struggling immensely in the closing stages. Carlos Sainz was on fresher rubber and pushing hard, but in the end the RB18 proved just fast enough for the win.

"Today the pressure was immense after the last safety car. Max just didn't get out of the DRS. In the second sector Ferrari was clearly faster than us. We were driving with tires that were seven to nine laps older," said Marko, who knows how difficult it is. "Withstanding the pressure, always having to parry that DRS... thank God Sainz had two small braking errors in the hairpin."