Helmut Marko ‘never’ expected what he realised speaking to Max Verstappen about leaving Red Bull

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Helmut Marko admits he and Max Verstappen were emotional after telling the Red Bull driver that he is now leaving the F1 team after 20 years as their motorsport adviser.

The 82-year-old decided straight after the 2025 F1 season came to a conclusion on Sunday that this would be his final year with Red Bull. Marko has also left his role overseeing the Red Bull Junior Team, which developed stars like Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz.

Red Bull confirmed that Marko is leaving the team on Tuesday, but they are not expected to replace the Austrian. It is said that Red Bull GmbH managing director Oliver Mintzlaff is due to adopt a bigger role in the day-to-day running of Red Bull Racing from the 2026 F1 season.

Helmut Marko ‘never’ expected’ Max Verstappen to be so successful in Formula 1

Marko leaves Red Bull having had a major role in all of the team’s successes since they took over the ailing Jaguar squad in 2005. Red Bull have won the F1 drivers’ championship eight times and taken six constructors’ titles, 130 Grand Prix wins and 111 pole positions to date.

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Vettel and Verstappen each won the F1 title four times with Red Bull, along with 38 and 71 Grand Prix wins plus 44 and 48 poles respectively. But Marko “never” expected Verstappen to achieve such vast success when he first signed the Dutchman for Red Bull back in 2014.

“Yes, me too,” Marko told GPBlog about Verstappen getting emotional about him leaving Red Bull. “Let’s say we were melancholic. We made a resume and said what we achieved. We said we never would have thought or believed it would happen.

“Just the same with me. I also didn’t believe when I first met him and signed him that we would have such a success.”

Max Verstappen is the most successful Red Bull driver in F1 history

Marko beat competition from Mercedes to sign Verstappen to Red Bull’s academy in August 2014 as they could give the Dutchman a faster route to F1. Mercedes wanted Verstappen to spend a year in GP2 (now F2), but Red Bull would put him at Toro Rosso in the 2015 season.

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The rest, as they say, was history, as Verstappen would replace Daniil Kvyat at Red Bull after just 23 races for Toro Rosso. He even won on debut for the Milton Keynes crew at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, and the 28-year-old has won at least one Grand Prix every season since.

Verstappen could have joined Michael Schumacher as the only driver to win five F1 titles in a row during the 2025 season, as well, but he finished the year two points shy of McLaren’s Lando Norris. Vettel’s run of four in a row finished 217 points from Lewis Hamilton in 2014.

Vettel won Red Bull their first F1 titles from 2010 to 2013, but he could not rival Hamilton in 2014 as Mercedes dominated the introduction of 1.6L V6 turbo-hybrid engines and Renault struggled. Red Bull did not win another title until Verstappen’s in 2021 with a Honda engine.