Red Bull Motorsport Consultant Helmut Marko commented on Max Verstappen’s retirement at the Australian Grand Prix. According to the Austrian, the reigning world champion retired due to a fuel leak.
“Max retired due to a fuel leak, but we don’t know where it came from,” Helmut Marko told German Sky Sport. – The leak was strong, so we told Max to stop immediately, and preferably where there is a fire extinguisher.
We don’t just have reliability issues, we have issues we don’t know the cause of. Another difficulty is being overweight. Our car is heavier than a Ferrari, and fixing this problem is quite difficult, given the budgetary constraints.
Difficult times are ahead of us. Today, Ferrari’s speed came as a surprise to us. They had to take care of the tires much less than us. Ferrari is in a league of its own. We are clearly behind, although Sergio had a great race.”