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

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

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

Red Bull advisor believes Max Verstappen's lead should be bigger

While speaking to Autosport, Red Bull Racing advisor Helmut Marko explained why Max Verstappen and the team are currently in the strong position they are in. "Before the last three races, we actually feared that we would be significantly behind. The 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 the rain," said Marko.

The Red Bull Racing advisor then added why he believes Verstappen's lead 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 the amount of points we lost carefully, then it's over 50 points in those three races. As a result, we are only 12 points ahead now. So we have survived all those setbacks and we have also been able to match the upswing from Mercedes," added Marko.

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

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