Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko loves dishing out criticism, but rarely does it come back at him so brutally.
The Formula 1 executive is often vocal about other teams and drivers, and nothing has changed in 2025 with him giving a brutal rundown of the sport’s new rookies.
This year will see five new permanent drivers on the grid, an unusual number in modern F1, and Marko wasn’t exactly glowing about all of them.
He gave positive reviews to Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Ferrari-owned Haas driver Oliver Bearman and his very own Isack Hadjar.
However, he savagely called Alpine’s Jack Doohan a ‘C-level driver who won’t finish the season’ and he wasn’t much kinder to the man who beat them all.
Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto has achieved the rare feat of winning Formula 2 and Formula 3 at the first attempt, something reserved for elite talents like Charles Leclerc and George Russell.
Yet Marko classified him as a B-driver, explaining: “He’s a very intelligent driver: he won the Formula 3 championship, but with just one victory, and he usually stays out of trouble.
“In Formula 2, he only achieved two victories. He’s a driver who brings the car home safely, has a good command of strategy and tire management, but I don’t see that raw speed in him.”
It’s likely that Sauber’s media team were telling their new hope to ignore the comments and stay out of trouble, but Bortoleto took the other option.
“I don’t care. I mean, I’ve seen that, and I love challenges,” he said in a media session ahead of his first F1 race.
“Hearing that from Helmut, he’s a guy who has put a lot of talent in Formula 1 and has put a lot of wrong talents in F1. So, you can see he got it right and wrong, and hopefully I will prove him wrong with the time.
“But nothing I say now in the media will change his mind, just my results on track. I’m sure I’ll prove him wrong at some point and hopefully he will admit this when I prove him wrong.
“For now, I’m just focussing on doing my job and improving and doing the best I can.
“I’m proud of what I did in junior series and I won in F2 and F3 against the Red Bull drivers he has, so good for me.”
Marko and Red Bull were famed for bringing junior talents into F1, particularly through sister team Racing Bulls.
They’ve won a combined eight drivers’ championships with Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel, but it’s fair to say that the Austrian’s powers might have dwindled in recent years.
In 2021 Red Bull went out of their driver pool to sign Sergio Perez for the main team, and for the junior side they picked up a 27-year-old Nyck De Vries, and later a 30-year-old Daniel Ricciardo.
The Milton Keynes squad have gone back to their DNA this season, with not just Hadjar, but Liam Lawson in the main squad alongside Verstappen.
Time will tell if Marko still has his scouting magic, and Bortoleto will certainly be there to pick up the pieces if not.
