Max Verstappen confident Red Bull can meet Helmut Marko demands

Max Verstappen

Verstappen confident Red Bull can meet Marko demands

Five wins in 2019

Martin Macdonald

Thursday 1 August 2019 18:30

Max Verstappen says he is content with nearly meeting the halfway point of the amount of race wins Helmut Marko demanded at the start of the season, but his ambition is always to win every race, not just five out of 21.

At the beginning of the season, Marko claimed that Red Bull were aiming to win five races in the 2019 campaign, and already Verstappen has won two without having reached the summer break, where the team usually kicks on to improve in the second half of the year.

The Dutchman initially thought that number was perhaps out of reach as Red Bull had only just struck up a partnership with Honda.

Article continues under video

“I spoke to him about that and said, like, it was quite optimistic, five victories in the first year working with Honda,” Verstappen said about Marko’’s five-race target, ahead of this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

“At the end of the day you need to get to know each other more and you learn more every race together. Of course, as soon as we won the first one Helmut was like 'I think we can get to five' and I was like, ‘okay’

Verstappen's wins let Red Bull relaxRead more

“It's not bad to win won, and we've won two. Normally in the second half we improve with updates to the car, so it's possible. Hopefully we can close the gap to Mercedes, and even Ferrari as in qualifying they are always very fast.

“To always be there, because you have an opportunity to win.”

However, the 21-year-old insists his desire is to win every single race in a season, not five.

“At the end, there are 21 races and I want to win all 21, not just five,” he added.

Verstappen has won two out of the last GP races in Austria and in Germany.