McLaren may be the team to beat heading to Melbourne for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, but Red Bull have the “joker” in the pack in Max Verstappen.

That’s according to Helmut Marko, who has been sharing his thoughts on Verstappen’s title chances.

McLaren have the car, but Red Bull have Max Verstappen

Laying down the laps at the Bahrain International Circuit in late February for pre-season testing, the Formula 1 teams were given a preview of what, potentially, is to come.

Although fuel loads and engine modes were unknown, the consensus amongst teams, pundits, and data crunchers is that McLaren are the favourites with Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari bunched up behind them.

During a three-day test in which none of the teams went for glory laps, it was the Woking team who dominated the race simulations while the MCL39’s tyre wear was also better than their rivals’.

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It has Marko declaring that while the F1 2025 championship could have a four-way fight for the titles, heading to Melbourne it is McLaren who have the advantage.

“In my opinion, it will be a three-way fight or four-way fight between McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and us,” the Red Bull motorsport advisor told sport.de.

“Although McLaren, if you look at the test results, already has a head start. That was the case in both the short and long runs.

“The current favourite is clearly McLaren.”

Asked to put a number to McLaren’s advantage, the 81-year-old said it could be as much as three-tenths of a second in race trim.

“It’s hard to say exactly what that looks like because the weather conditions were completely out of the norm,” Marko said. “It was cold, there was a strong wind. It even rained.

“It was only the case on Wednesday when we were on par with McLaren. But on Friday, on the last day, I would say that our gap in the long run is currently still two to three-tenths.

“On top of that, the tyre wear at McLaren was also much better than our data indicated.”

But while McLaren may have the fastest car, Marko has found one huge advantage in Red Bull’s favour. Or best to say in Verstappen’s favour.

McLaren head into the new season with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on equal footing, the McLaren team-mates both with the opportunity to fight for the World title. At Red Bull, there’s just one driver – Max Verstappen.

“If you look at the test in Bahrain, it’s Lando Norris, who coped much better than Oscar Piastri,” said Marko. “But I think that was just a phenomenon of Bahrain. I rate Piastri equally strong and I hope that the two will take points away and that we will benefit from that.

“Max is the clear number one for us, and I don’t think Piastri will voluntarily be declared number two. And you could already see that last season, on certain tracks he was equal, if not faster, than Lando.

“But the advantage is that McLaren currently have a car again that – if you take Bahrain now – copes very well with any type of tyre and with any temperature.”

Red Bull’s RB21 didn’t show the same signs with Marko saying: “It would have been nice if our adaptations and innovations had worked right away.

“[But] The car is more predictable. The car reacts to technical things the way it should react. It’s not the arbitrariness we had last year. This means that there is still a development and improvement in the realm of what is possible with the existing material.”

And even if the RB21 cannot match the MCL39, the Milton Keynes squad has the “joker” in Verstappen.

“So if the car is not optimal, then we have the joker Max, who then has to bring his driving brilliance into play.”

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