30/06/2025
NEWS STORY
Helmut Marko "writes off" 2025 title hopes after "horrible" home race.
As if McLaren's utter dominance wasn't enough, Max Verstappen's race came to an end at the third corner after he was taken out by Kimi Antonelli, while Yuki Tsunoda's struggle to finish sixteenth saw the team leave its home race without a single point to its name.
"We've got some updates coming over the next two races," said the Austrian, "but this was a performance that, I'd almost say... yes, it forces us to write off the championship.
"With this kind of gap, and unless we manage to catch up soon enough to win on merit, I mean, how many points is Max trailing now?" he added.
"Looking at McLaren's performance, they only had a dip in Canada, when they needed new parts. That's not something we can rely on happening again. So no, it doesn't look good.
"Unfortunately, it's both, the time gap and the 60-point margin, which is nearly equivalent to three race wins. That's incredibly difficult to recover," he admitted.
Meanwhile, his team having failed to score a single point for the first time since Bahrain 2022, team boss Christian Horner echoed his inner Swiss Tony.
"What's truly impressive, and for me I can't see any other team being able to do it, is when you look at how close Oscar is able to run behind Lando with a car fat on fuel at the beginning of the race," said the Briton.
"He's basically making love to his f****** exhaust pipe for lap after lap after lap, and the tyres are not dying," he added. "I mean, that to me is, you know, that is their advantage.
"They've managed to create a car that really protects its tyres very well and obviously has a good balance.
"I can't see any other car that would be able to follow that closely and not grain the front tyres or the rear tyres. I don't really understand," he admitted.
"It was a home race to forget," he sighed. "We got unlucky in qualifying, that then puts us in a position where you're in the crash zone, and Kimi just lost it in spectacular fashion up at Turn 3.
"Max was basically through the corner and getting back on the power, and just got wiped out, so, an unfortunate mistake by Kimi. He's apologised to Max, but, you know, for us it killed our afternoon."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Zeltweg here.