Helmut Marko reveals that he only decided to step down after the season finale in Abu Dhabi – would he have left even if he had won the title?
Helmut Marko’s retirement from Formula 1 was not planned well in advance. In an interview with ORF, the Austrian revealed that he only decided to take this step after the season finale in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
It was “a very bitter disappointment” to have missed out on the world championship title by just two points after Max Verstappen had previously staged a “unique” comeback. Marko reveals that this “hit him particularly hard,” as well as Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase. “I felt right after the race that something had been lost,” he reports, explaining: “I then stayed in Dubai on Monday. That’s when I made the decision.” Incidentally, this did not necessarily have anything to do with the outcome of the championship, according to Marko. “Even if we had won [the title], it would have been a good reason to step down from this job. But now, conversely, because we lost, it’s also a good point,” said Marko, who emphasized: “I didn’t discuss this with anyone.”
Verstappen only informed on Tuesday
He said he “called Red Bull boss Oliver Mintzlaff in Dubai and asked if we could meet briefly. A kind of championship dinner was planned. And we met before the dinner,” said Marko. That’s when he “conveyed my wish” to Mintzlaff.
“We discussed for a while whether a partial solution or something like that was still possible. I said that if we were going to do it, we had to do it completely,” Marko emphasized. The Thai Red Bull shareholders were also present at the meeting, and “everything went amicably and in a very good atmosphere.”
However, one important person from the Red Bull universe was not there. “Max [Verstappen] should have been there too. There were some problems with a flight, so he wasn’t there,” reveals Marko, who therefore only called the Dutchman “the next day.”
“There was a certain melancholy. He said he could never have imagined that he would ever achieve such success,” reports Marko, who nevertheless emphasizes quite soberly: “Everything comes to an end. I wished him all the best for the future.”
Marko emphasizes once again that the entire separation “took place on very good terms.” In this context, it is also interesting to note that Bild reports that Red Bull will still pay Marko his full annual salary of around ten million euros in 2026.
A very unusual procedure in the case of a voluntary resignation.
