Helmut Marko has revealed the reasons why he’s leaving Red Bull’s Formula 1 project at the end of the year, citing Max Verstappen’s 2025 title loss as a major factor.
Marko is ending a 25-year stint as one of Red Bull’s bosses in motorsport, having led its Junior Team since 2001 and acted as an advisor for the brand’s F1 squads since 2005. The Austrian played a key role in the rise of four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and helped Red Bull secure Verstappen’s services when the Dutch youngster was in Formula 3.
A common assumption was that Marko was squeezed out because of his uncontrolled speech in the media, which was sometimes at odds with Red Bull’s PR discourse and came under fire when the 82-year-old unwittingly contributed to a wave of abuse against Mercedes teenager Andrea Kimi Antonelli following this year’s Qatar Grand Prix.
However, Marko confirmed to Austrian broadcaster ORF that leaving his current role was his own idea, after a tough 2025 season ended in disappointment as dark horse Verstappen narrowly lost the title to McLaren’s Lando Norris.
“We had a difficult season this year,” Marko explained. “It was particularly bumpy in the middle. We were 104 points behind in Holland. Then we started a comeback that was certainly unique. But unfortunately, it didn’t work out in the last race. We lost the championship by two points.
“Although this comeback was unique, it was still a very bitter disappointment. It hit us particularly hard. Even after the race, I felt that something had been lost.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Helmut Marko, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
“I then stayed in Dubai on Monday. That’s when I made my decision. Even if we had won, it would have been a good reason to leave this job. But now, in hindsight, because we lost, it’s also a good point.”
Marko added that F1’s new chassis and power unit regulations for 2026 meant this was perfect timing for him to bow out, though the former driver wasn’t involved in designing Red Bull’s F1 cars.
Marko also quashed rumours that head of race engineering Gianpiero Lambiase, who also acts as Verstappen’s race engineer, might be leaving too.
Asked whether he discussed his potential exit with Verstappen, whom he is very close to, Marko clarified: “I didn’t discuss it with anyone, but called Oliver Mintzlaff, the manager responsible at Red Bull, in Dubai and asked if we could meet briefly. A kind of championship dinner was planned. And we met before the dinner.
“I told him what I wanted. We discussed for a while whether a partial solution was still possible. I said that if we were going to do it, we had to do it completely.
“That happened ad hoc. The other shareholder from the Thai family was also present. But it was all very amicable and went very well.
Oliver Mintzlaff, Managing director of Red Bull GmbH
Photo by: Michael Potts / Motorsport Images
“Max should have been there too. There were some problems with his flight, so he wasn’t there.
“I called him the next day. It wasn’t a normal conversation. There was a certain melancholy in the air. He said he never could have imagined that he would ever achieve such success.”
Red Bull bought the Jaguar and Minardi outfits, neither of which ever won a grand prix, ahead of the 2005 and 2006 seasons respectively. The Milton Keynes-based team went on to claim 14 world titles – eight drivers’ and six constructors’ – and a whopping 130 victories in 418 grands prix, more than any other team; Mercedes is on 122 since its return in 2010. The Faenza minnow, meanwhile, won two races as Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri.
“Let’s try it, maybe we’ll win a grand prix,” Marko quoted Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz as saying. Success eventually stretched far beyond what sounded like bold ambition 20 years ago.
Additional reporting by Ruben Zimmermann
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