Upgrading the RB21 in Saudi Arabia, Helmut Marko believes Red Bull’s “small steps” should give them the speed to beat McLaren come “Imola”.

After the disappointment of Bahrain, where the RB21 did not have the pace to even finish on the podium, never mind challenge McLaren, Red Bull made a few changes to the RB21 in Jeddah.

Are Red Bull only two races away from beating McLaren?

Changing the beam wing for the lower-downforce circuit, Red Bull also reprofiled the engine cover to allow for additional cooling in light of the extreme temperatures forecast in Saudi Arabia.

Verstappen clinched pole position by one-hundredth of a second ahead of Oscar Piastri, but lost the win to the McLaren driver after being hit with a penalty for his Turn 1 antics when he overtook Piastri off the track.

But just 2.8s behind Piastri at the line, it was a notable improvement to Red Bull’s performance at the previous race in Bahrain where the Dutchman was P6 and 35s behind race winner Piastri.

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“Compared to Bahrain, we made a big progress,” Marko said as per Motorsport.com. “But also this circuit suits us better – faster corners and so on. We are moving forward and getting a car which is more predictable and is also working in a wider range.”

Such has been Red Bull’s step forward, Marko believes they could once again be the team to beat when Formula 1 heads to Imola. That’s in two races’ time.

“We will have small steps, and I think by Imola we should be in a position that we also have the speed to beat the McLarens,” he declared.

In fact, such is Marko’s belief in Red Bull and Verstappen that he is not particularly worried that Piastri was able to extend his advantage as the only multiple Grand Prix winner.

The Australian driver has won three of this year’s five Grands Prix, the other two wins going to Lando Norris and Verstappen.

Piastri holds a 10-point lead over Norris in the standings with Verstappen a further two off the pace.

“Yes, that’s not worrying,” said the 81-year-old. “It won’t be easy, but we have proven that we can win the championship even if we are behind. I still remember, with Vettel we were more than forty points behind and still won the world championship.”

Red Bull can also count on the McLaren team-mates taking points off one another as Marko doubts Piastri or Norris would accept team orders this early in the season.

“We prefer that one wins first and then the other, for a change. Piastri and Norris are unlikely to submit to team orders just like that. And that’s actually a great opportunity for us – for those two to compete with each other,” Marko said.

Marko, though, wasn’t alone in applauding Red Bull’s gains in Saudi with Verstappen also happy with the team’s improvement in what he called an “overall positive” weekend.

“Despite everything in the race, getting P2 quite close behind Oscar was overall a positive weekend for us,” he said.

“Of course, on tracks with higher degradation we still have more work to do, but we did well with the setup, the car went well and we had really good race pace.

“Especially after Bahrain, this was a good weekend to finish off the triple header and we just need to keep working and be as consistent as possible. It really has been a good and positive race and it is promising for the races ahead.”

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