Red Bull ‘walking a tightrope’ as Helmut Marko makes admission ahead of Monaco GP

F1: Spanish Grand Prix preview

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Red Bull have claimed DRS issues which plagued Max Verstappen’s car at the Spanish Grand Prix were down to their car’s weight issues. Red Bull chief Helmut Marko admitted the problems were down to a new, lighter mechanism which they had installed.

However, the part was not yet running on Sergio Perez’s vehicle which explains why the Mexican did not suffer from the issue. Marko said the team had walked a ‘tightrope’ between balancing their weight issues and reliability.

But he stressed the team were set to look into the issue ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix testing on Friday. Marko said: “At this rate of development, you can never build everything for two cars at first.

“When you have a weight, you have to start making parts lighter and we reached a limit. Then the parts bend or no longer have the rigidity. So that’s a tightrope walk.”

Marko also insisted the car was ‘going to be safer’ for the Monaco Grand Prix next weekend, saying: “Two kilos more or less doesn’t make the difference in Monte Carlo.”

DRS issues affected Verstappen’s final qualifying run on Saturday, preventing him from having another attempt at beating Charles Leclerc’s time. The team said they had replaced four parts ahead of Sunday’s race including two directly linked to the DRS.

However, the issue came back during the Dutchman’s battle with George Russell in the opening stages of the race.

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The DRS flap appeared to open and close straight away on some alps which prevented him from passing the Mercedes driver sooner. The issue caused Verstappen to lose his cool over the team radio, swearing at his race engineers on multiple occasions.

The Red Bull star looked unlikely to catch Leclerc and only secured victory after the Ferrari star was forced to retire with a mechanical failure. Speaking on the DRS issue, Horner told Sky Sports F1: “[Verstappen] was venting his frustration. Obviously there was a little road rage going on at that point.

“Which is understandable. I mean he must have hit the button 50 times on one straight and that’s something we need to get on top of.”

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