Helmut Marko: "Carlos Sainz is fast but he is not Max Verstappen"
Helmut Marko remembers why Red Bull decided to promote Max Verstappen instead of Carlos Sainz in 2016.
Dr. Helmut Marko is maybe the person that makes the most polemic and unfiltered statements in all Formula 1. This time, he remarks Red Bull’s decisions of 2016 when the Austrian team demoted Daniil Kvyat and they decided to promote Max Verstappen instead of Carlos Sainz. Let’s remember that Daniil Kvyat had an awful start of the 2016 season but his home Grand Prix, the Russian GP, was the lowest point of his career as he crashed two times into Sebastian Vettel and made him retire of the race, with those actions and facts, Red Bull Racing decided that Daniil Kvyat will no longer be part of their senior team so they demoted him to Toro Rosso. The Italian team and B team of RB had Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz as their drivers so Red Bull had to decide who will they promote. Both of them started being Formula 1 drivers in 2015 but the Spaniard was having “better” results than Verstappen. That didn’t matter to Red Bull as they decided to promote Max Verstappen to Red Bull Racing either way. Some people think that Carlos felt underrated by his own team and eventually, he decided to leave Toro Rosso and the 2017 US GP was his first Grand Prix as a Renault driver.
“Carlos faced Max. The choice [in 2016] was between these two drivers. So, we needed to decide. Carlos is fast, otherwise we wouldn’t had him, but he is not Max Verstappen.” Explained Marko to “Motorsport.com”.
“We have a good relationship [with Carlos], but at that particular moment we also had Verstappen on the team and there are certain differences between them.” Marko added.
Nowadays, Carlos Sainz is the first driver of McLaren (with Lando Norris as his teammate) and Max Verstappen has defeated every single teammate that he has had (starting in the 2018 season). The Dutchman has rolled over Pierre Gasly (before he was demoted to Toro Rosso), Alex Albon (after he was promoted to RB) and Daniel Ricciardo (in the 2018 season). Both are young drivers, and both have a lot more to give in Formula 1, will we ever see them fighting for wins, now that McLaren is approaching to the top teams?
