Helmut Marko has hinted that his future at Red Bull may be coming to an end, after 20 years working on the company’s F1 participation.
Marko has been entrenched within Red Bull’s F1 operations ever since the company’s late founder Dietrich Mateschitz purchased the Jaguar team in 2004.
Helmut Marko to ‘sleep on it’ over F1 future
The 82-year-old Austrian is the only remaining piece in Red Bull Racing’s upper management and ownership structure that was in place at the time of Dietrich Mateschitz’s death in 2022, but has hinted that his role within the team is something he needs to consider ahead of the F1 2026 season.
Marko is a director of Red Bull Racing; an arrangement that remains in place following the replacement of Christian Horner with Laurent Mekies during the summer of 2025.
His job title has been that of ‘advisor’ to Red Bull Racing from GMbH, with Marko also overseeing the team’s junior driver programme selections over the past two decades.
However, Marko raised the possibility of him departing his long-standing role after the F1 2025 season when he spoke to the media in Abu Dhabi following Max Verstappen’s narrow defeat to Lando Norris in the Drivers’ Championship.
“It’s not in doubt [but] I will have a discussion, and then I’ll see what I do,” he told media, including PlanetF1.com, when asked about whether he is having any doubts about his own future with the team.
Asked by PlanetF1.com whether his enthusiasm for F1 and the team remains the same, he replied, “[It’s a] complex of different things.”
With Marko having been effusive in previous answers when speaking about the events of the race and Verstappen’s championship, he appeared uncomfortable with the line of questioning regarding his future, and a follow-up query about what his head and heart are telling him prompted an uncertain answer.
“I have to see… have to sleep over it, and then we see.”
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With Red Bull going through a period of managerial revolution in recent months, starting with the decision to axe Horner in favour of Mekies as Red Bull GmbH and Oliver Mintzlaff sought to bring power and influence back to the parent company, Marko’s position was always likely to come under increased scrutiny.
Well-placed sources have indicated that a succession plan for Marko’s departure or retirement from the team has been evaluated for several months, with prominent names such as Sebastian Vettel and Gerhard Berger tentatively mooted as possibilities.
The relationship between Marko and Red Bull’s new power structure of Mintzlaff and Mekies is believed to have become strained, even over relatively minor topics as Marko is alleged to have attempted to make unilateral decisions such as signings to the junior programme.
Suggestions that US partners of Red Bull were informed by Mintzlaff over recent months that F1 2025 would be Marko’s last season in place have been denied by senior sources within Red Bull.
However, uncertainty over Marko’s future may have turned into a more firm decision as recently as the Qatar Grand Prix, when Marko made comments to the media regarding Kimi Antonelli.
These insinuations, which enflamed a tense situation that led to a torrent of social media abuse against the 18-year-old Italian, have been suggested as solidifying the decision to move Marko aside.
PlanetF1.com understands that, for now, the intent is to keep things as they are, but that discussions, as usual for post-season, are set to be held with Marko.
When asked by PlanetF1.com about whether he and Mintzlaff will converse with Marko about his future, Mekies praised the Austrian’s contribution to the season but did not deny the possibility of change.
“Helmut has been incredible in how supportive he has been in helping us turn things around this year,” he said.
“Obviously, him and top management had quite a few difficult decisions to make in the year, and of course, Formula 1 is not a static environment.
“You always adjust your organisations, and it applies to technical, it applies to sporting and it’s completely normal that we review how we can improve the way we operate all the time.
“I’m not saying that specifically for Helmut, but I’m saying that, in general, we are an environment where we always challenge each other and look for the next steps, no matter how small it is in trying to work together.
“But I can only thank Helmut for the role he has played in making fundamentally what looked like a difficult, difficult situation at the mid-season and making it work.”
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