Marko points blame not at Perez, but at current track limits
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- Toby McLuskie
For Helmut Marko, it was a qualifying session with two faces. Max Verstappen was the fastest driver of the day, but Sergio Perez will have to fight his way forward from a disappointing 15th place on Sunday. The Red Bull Racing advisor is sticking up for Perez and hopes for a solution from next year.
"The speed was there, but then he was hampered by Albon and then followed the story with the track limits, but the speed was there," Marko is quoted by Motorsport-Magazin.com. In Q2, Perez was only a tenth slower than Verstappen each time, but on three occasions his time was scrapped by race control for going too wide at turn 10.
Verstappen felt the fact that so many drivers saw their times taken away was not a good advertisement for the sport. Marko agrees with his driver and wants to avoid ending up in the same situation in 2024.
"We need a solution, something else has to be done with these lines. Either make gravel or slightly higher kerbs. The whole ambience is destroyed by this." Just putting gravel in place of the current asphalt run-out zones does not seem possible, as MotoGP also runs at the Red Bull Ring. However, that matters little to Marko: " Formula 1 certainly has priority on this issue and you have to find an appropriate compromise because this is nothing."