Helmut Marko was an important player in the Red Bull organization for two decades. He attracted drivers and was accountable to the great Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz. Although, Mateschitz often blindly followed Marko in his beliefs.
“Dietrich Mateschitz has built a global concern and I simply passed on my ideas and requirements to him. This often only required a brief explanation.”
“These were, for example, things like replacing the Renault engines with Honda power units. That was a twenty-minute conversation and then it was decided,” Marko told reporters. F1-Insider.
However, it can be done even faster, for example when it came to securing Max Verstappen a few years ago: “It went even faster, I believe, with Max Verstappen’s longest and most expensive Formula 1 contract. I don’t remember which year that was, but the question arose whether it was justified. After all, it involved a relatively large amount of money.”
“The answer was ultimately ‘yes’, because without Verstappen we would no longer become world champions. That’s how those conversations went. He immediately understood what it was about and supported my ideas, or not.”
“But he also came up with certain statements himself. How did he know about certain details? It was my job to present him with the facts and explain to him why and how something should or should not be done.”
