Nov.22 - Dr Helmut Marko has doubled down after fellow Red Bull chief Christian Horner was officially rebuked for lashing out at a "rogue" steward in Qatar.

Horner's frustration was about a pre-race grid penalty for championship leader Max Verstappen, with the Dutchman found to have ignored waving yellow flags in the decisive moments of Q3.

"At least I didn't curse into the radio or point my finger at anyone," Horner said, directing his ire at bitter Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff.

Dr Marko said he understands Horner's anger.

"The anger is about one car not being shown a yellow flag, the next car being shown one and the third car being shown two," he said.

"It's just about the inconsistency."

It's also about the world championship, with Verstappen ultimately having to recover through the field to finish second rather than start from P2 in the first place.

"If Max had started second, it would have been closer," Marko agrees.

"Logically he lost some time in the initial phase and had to demand more from the tyres."

As for Horner, he apologised for his outburst about the steward.

"He also apologize personally to the person who showed the yellow flag," revealed F1 race director Michael Masi. "To Christian's credit, he also volunteered to take part in a steward workshop in 2022.

"From my perspective, I will protect every volunteer on every track in every part of the world, because such comments about them are unacceptable," the FIA official added.

Verstappen himself, whose title lead to Lewis Hamilton now drops to just 8 points with two races to go, said when asked about the penalty: "I never get gifts from the stewards, so that's ok - no surprises."

Marko, though, moved his frustration from the steward in question to the FIA as an organisation.

"It's ridiculous," the 78-year-old Austrian told Sport1.

"The FIA cannot set up a decent marshalling system and tries to hide its incompetence by putting it onto the shoulders of the drivers.

"In the digital age, the drivers have everything on the display. And there was nothing on the display. And suddenly an inexperienced person was waving flags.

"Then the message came from Masi that it was ok, and at the same time Max saw the green light which he thought was for him.

"It was just an unfortunate situation and in my opinion none of the drivers should have been punished," Marko said.


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9 F1 Fan comments on “Red Bull's Marko slams 'incompetent' FIA after grid penalty

  1. f1award

    Horner, nothing like volunteering to take a penalty when the risk of taking a proper one is far more punishing. Picking on unpaid marshals is one of the lowest of the lows in motorsport

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  2. shroppyfly

    A Silly argument, who appreciates that they do it for free??

    Whether free or paid, they have to do the job RIGHT, they are appointed and trained , in exactly the same way a paid marshall would be and therefore be open to appraisal and criticism

    As for being punished for criticizing someone, that's how ridiculous the world has become

    That's my opinion and because it is I am right

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    • shroppyfly

      Who, both our arguments are correct, i presume the track owners or fia are laughing all the way to the bank using Volunteers......., i have mentioned this before , but paid employees will have all sorts of service benefits , that volunteers aren't able to get, death in service , sick pay etc etc
      But they are expected to perform there duties to the same standards that any paid employee would .And the fia call out Horner for what he said , its a joke if you think about it

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  3. ReallyOldRacer

    Validity of penalties aside, the double yellow was spot on......disabled car on track and a clear hazard (moving, single flag then stopped, double). The marshall was correct, full stop. Action on track was correct, the penalties and heated comments we can argue about.

    As for a travelling band of paid marshalls, do the math. $30-40 MILLION per season, plus the staffing and logistic nightmare. Maybe 20 chief marshalls to supervise each station would be helpful, but they had better be multilingual.

    It ain't broken, don't try to fix it.

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  4. shroppyfly

    Well i haven't and cant begin to work out what it might cost , but i'm betting EVERY fia official is paid, and everyone's right , they have an extremely responsible and at times difficult job, they at least could be insured by the fia in case of serious injury or death, but it wasn't just that point it was also regarding Horner's official warning which to me , seemed way over the top that prompted me to post

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  5. MichaelM

    We should stop watching F1. If MB can't win on the track, FIA will win it for them with ridiculous arbitrations against Verstapen. Remember Silverstone? LH deliberately bumped wheels and sent Verstappen to the hospital, something that would've justified immediate disqualification. Instead, they gave LH a minimum 10 s penalty. Seriously?

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    • John Mitchell

      Pity you did not watch the replays and so understand it was clearly a racing incident. This was reviewed by the stewards and accepted as a racing incident. Unfortunate for Max the result but his driving as though nobody else on the track is a common occurrence with Max.There was certainly no deliberate unsafe driving by LH.

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