A little insight on Helmut Marko

[stbreaker]

During the American broadcast of the German GP, Speed TV announcer and former F1 driver David Hobbs spoke a bit on Helmut Marko - who we all know as the evil guy behind all the Red Bull & Toro Rosso driver changes. While I think it's pretty clear that STR did Scott Speed and Bourdais wrong, Hobbs did try to explain a little bit about the man.

Apparently, he grew up as friends with Jochen Rindt, F1's only posthumous champion. Hobbs was saying how they grew up without much support at all in the racing community and thus had to be perfect in order to survive. Soon after Rindt's death, Marko's own career was cut short when he was hit in the face with a stone during a race and lost vision in one of his eyes. However, Marko still carries this "no mistakes allowed" mentality when it comes to the Red Bull Junior Academy. Brendon Hartley seems to be one of the latest victims there in spite of only being 22 years old. And of course we all remember Marko basically calling last year's STR drivers "losers" in the off-season.

Although I still think he's a bit harsh on the young guys, it's nice to get a better idea of where he is coming from. Below is a link to an article about him I found online:

http://jalopnik.com/5872675/the-terrific-exploits-of-helmut-marko-red-bulls-one eyed-kingmaker

 

[Chris Jenkins]

Red Bull will disappear from F1 if they stop winning. Guaranteed.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

Explain them having one extra team then anybody else that is not winning anything?

they go back to 1995 as Sponsor and 2005 as their own team.

How many other teams contribute by buying two teams that were for sale and kept them still in F1?
Jaguar and Minardi are the forfathers of RBR and STR.
No other team owns another team just to bring in more talent in F1 for example.

From what i can see from Red Bull is that they are true enthusiasts.
F1 is just one section of their motorsport programme for example.

 

[James Maskell]

They are the only team which have what i would call a complete development programme that has rewarded them with continued success in the sport.

 

[James Maskell]

Jaguar and Minardi are the forfathers of RBR and STR.

I think its funny that technically the only time Webber has been in a completely different team is when he was at Williams .

 

[Terry Rock]

I take a pretty dim view of HM calling any driver 'a loser'. Not every will come up to SV's level of excellence, but degrading a guy like JA was wrong...especially in public. There was simply no reason for it.