Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko believes Ferrari “squeezed” all of their potential out of their power unit at the recent Italian Grand Prix, where the Maranello-based team were hoping for a famous win.
Having not really competed with Red Bull all season, Ferrari were suddenly ultra-competitive at Monza, where the SF-23 was phenomenal in a straight line.
It was so good in fact, that Carlos Sainz beat reigning World Champion Max Verstappen to pole position, something which wasn’t expected ahead of the race.
Whilst Verstappen ended up winning the race fairly comfortably, he was forced to work very hard for it in the opening stages, where he struggled to overtake Sainz for the lead.
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Following the Italian GP, Fernando Alonso insisted that Ferrari always do “special things” to their car at their home race, including fitting a new power unit.
“It is the Ferrari circuit,” said Alonso, as reported by Grandpx.news.
“For years they have put in a new engine or done special things like that for that race, but the world championship is 22 races.”
Marko completely agreed with the ex-Ferrari driver about the Italians doing “everything possible” at Monza, something the Austrian admitted Red Bull “knew” would happen.
Even Sergio Perez had to be very patient when it came to overtaking Sainz, who put on a defensive masterclass.
It was arguably the most that any team has pushed Red Bull this season, with some wondering whether Ferrari can repeat their strong showing at Monza this weekend at the Singapore Grand Prix.
Marko insists that Red Bull were actually “surprised” at just how quick the Italians were, to the extent that they struggled to “keep up” in the opening laps.
“We knew that Ferrari would put everything possible into Monza,” Marko told Servus TV. “They went to the maximum and squeezed out the last horsepower.
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“But we also knew that the engine would suffer later for that. Unlike them, we have a universal car. So we knew it would be tight and didn’t lose our nerve.
“But we were still surprised that we didn’t keep up with Ferrari at first. Max (Verstappen) had to drive differently and change his strategy and just be patient.
“The Max of four or five years ago would not have had that patience.”