Max Verstappen ‘lost 50 points innocently’ in title duel as Red Bull admit Mercedes fear

F1: Hamilton v Verstappen in numbers

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Max Verstappen would be around 50 points better off in his F1 title battle Lewis Hamilton had it not been for bad luck, according to a senior figure at his Red Bull team. The Dutch driver is 12 points ahead of his Mercedes rival with five races to go in the season, but Helmut Marko believes that margin could have been much more comfortable.

Verstappen produced a mature drive last time out the United States Grand Prix to keep the charging Hamilton at arm’s length and cross the finish line just 1.3 seconds ahead.

That small time difference made for a fairly important points swing, though, as the Red Bull ace double his lead in the drivers’ standings – with Hamilton gaining an extra point for recording the fastest lap time in Austin.

It was, perhaps, a surprise result considering the Circuit of the Americas has been a stronghold for Mercedes, but not only did Verstappen beat Hamilton but Sergio Perez finished third, way ahead of Valtteri Bottas to make sure Mercedes lost 13 points of ground in the constructors’ title race.

It was a strong performance and important result for Verstappen, who maintains an advantage over his rival – albeit still a fairly narrow one.

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But Marko believes it should be far more comfortable, citing the Azerbaijan, British and Hungarian Grand Prix as examples of races in which Verstappen “innocently” lost points.

Though he also said Red Bull thought they would be a lot worse off than they are after the last handful of races.

“Before the last three races, we actually feared that we would be significantly behind,” the Austrian told Autosport.

“The bottom line is that we scored more points than Hamilton in those Grand Prix, mainly because of Hamilton’s race in Turkey where he was only fifth, while Max finished second in Sochi – certainly by luck as well, because of the rain.

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“But even more remarkable is, we innocently lost Baku, lost Silverstone and lost Hungary. If you calculate the amount of points we lost carefully, then it’s over 50 points in those three races.

“As a result we are only 12 points ahead now. So we have survived all those setbacks and we have also been able to match the upswing from Mercedes.”

Baku would have been particularly tough for Verstappen to take, as he was leading when a tyre blowout saw him spin, crashing into a wall and out of the race.

His Silverstone crash was in more acrimonious circumstances, as it was contact with Hamilton – who went on to win the race – which sent him careering off the track and into the tyre wall.

And it was the other Mercedes at fault when he was hit at the first corner by Lando Norris, who was pushed into him by Bottas, and could only manage ninth place with an extensively damaged car.

Marko still believes the Dutchman can win his maiden title this year, though, and thinks he needs to win two of his final five races to do so.

The high altitude tracks of Brazil and Mexico should suit us significantly better. It’s just that so much has already happened this season,” he added.

“So-called Mercedes tracks weren’t Mercedes tracks in the end and the same goes for Red Bull tracks.

“If we win the next two races, then it’s 60-40 for Max.”

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