Dr. Helmut Marko said that Red Bull can start dreaming about Max Verstappen's fifth championship if they manage to improve their performance by the Singapore Grand Prix. The Dutchman currently sits in the third position in the Drivers' Championship, which is headed by Oscar Piastri.
McLaren gave dominating performances this season. However, their racers have not been the most consistent ones. While Piastri was strong enough, he choked in Baku earlier this season in a consecutive race in Baku, making that fourth win of the season.
This has posed a danger to McLaren, whose team principal earlier noted that RBR could be a serious candidate in the Drivers' Championship.
While that is a possibility now that Verstappen has managed to reduce the gap between him and Piastri to 69 points, team advisor Helmut Marko Still insists that is a huge difference.
"What Andrea said is very optimistic, but I hope he’s right," he told De Telegraaf. "The gap is still big, and it’s not often that a McLaren doesn’t finish the race."
However, the side has not given up on considering the possibility of Verstappen's fifth consecutive championship, Marko said that if Red Bull does manage to perform strongly in Singapore in early October, they could "start dreaming" of leading the championship. He explained that Singapore has not been the best track for their cars previously, and the race there would set a benchmark for the leftover season.
"But we’ll see. If we’re competitive in Singapore in two weeks’ time, maybe we can start dreaming," he added. "Not only is it a different circuit, but it’s also boiling hot. Our car doesn’t always like that either. Singapore will be the benchmark for where we really stand. And we’ve always said: we have to be as close as possible to McLaren to make them nervous."
Max Verstappen, at the same time, also considers the gap massive enough to be filled in with seven races remaining in the season.
Max Verstappen reflects on title deficit despite two consecutive Red Bull wins
Verstappen won two consecutive races in Italy and Azerbaijan in aggressive fashion. He secured the pole at Monza and went on to take the victory. In Azerbaijan, he did the same, and with two straight wins, he reduced the gaps as Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris failed to increase the lead.
As of now, the Dutch racer has 255 points to his name in 17 races and three sprints. Compared to him, Norris has 299 points, and Piastri has 324. This means Verstappen requires 70 more points in the upcoming races to take a shot at his fifth F1 title.
"Seven races to go and it's still 69 points, it's a lot," Verstappen said, speaking about his championship chances. "Basically, everything needs to go perfect from my side and then a bit of luck from their side I need as well. So it's still very tough."
"I just go race by race, which I have been doing basically the whole season - just trying to do the best we can, try to score the most points that we can. Then after Abu Dhabi, we'll know," Verstappen further added. (via Sky SportsF1)
Going as per calculations, Max Verstappen needs to get or win maximum points in the future races and sprints, while Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have to drop points to make it a three-way championship battle. However, it looks impossible.