Red Bull Racing's Helmut Marko says Verstappen lost '50 points innocently' in title battle

Red Bull Racing visor Helmut Marko is confident Max Verstappen's le in F1 Drivers' Championship standings would have been greater h Dutchman not lost 'over 50 points innocently.' As things stand, Verstappen (287.5) currently les Lewis Hamilton (275.5) by 12 points, with just five races remaining in season.

Marko cited British, Azerbaijan and Hungarian Grand Prix as examples to explain why he believes Verstappen should have a greater le in F1 Drivers' Championship standings.

Red Bull visor believes Max Verstappen's le should be bigger

While speaking to Autosport, Red Bull Racing visor Helmut Marko explained why Max Verstappen and team are currently in strong position y are in. "Before last three races, we actually feared that we would be significantly behind. bottom line is that we scored more points than Hamilton in those grand prix, mainly because of Hamilton's race in Turkey where he was only fifth, while Max finished second in Sochi - certainly by luck as well, because of rain," said Marko.

Red Bull Racing visor n ded why he believes Verstappen's le should be at least 50 points if not more from Hamilton. "But even more remarkable is: we innocently lost Baku, lost Silverstone and lost Hungary. If you calculate amount of points we lost carefully, n it's over 50 points in those three races. As a result, we are only 12 points ahe now. So we have survived all those setbacks and we have also been able to match upswing from Mercedes," ded Marko.

At British Grand Prix in Silverstone, re was a controversial first lap contact between Hamilton and Verstappen, with former going on to win race despite serving a 10-second penalty for incident. n in Baku, Dutchman retired with five laps remaining when his left-rear tyre exploded on straight, causing him to crash out.

Similarly, in Hungary Verstappen finished race in ninth place after facing damage at start. Valtteri Bottas did not get braking right as his car crashed into Lando Norris who in turn crashed into Red Bull Racing driver, resulting in him losing anor opportunity to score points.