Formula 1: Helmut Marko mixed up race dates

Red Bull Racing team manager Helmut Marko mixed up Formula 1 race dates when he gave a timetable on when the team’s driver lineup for the 2020 season will be confirmed.

The four drivers within the Red Bull Racing organization have been confirmed for the 2020 Formula 1 season by team manager Helmut Marko.

With that being said, only one of them, Max Verstappen, is locked into his ride for next year. He is set to return to the Red Bull Racing senior team for the fifth consecutive season and fourth consecutive full season.

The other three, rookie Alexander Albon, Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat, are all in contention to land the second seat at Red Bull Racing despite a previous statement by Marko, which he later clarified. He initially stated that Kvyat was locked into Scuderia Toro Rosso (Scuderia Alpha Tauri from 2020), effectively the Red Bull Racing junior team.

Marko stated about a month and a half ago that the team’s evaluation in regard to who to place alongside Verstappen at the Milton Keynes-based team and which two drivers to place in the Faenza-based team would be made following the Mexican Grand Prix at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

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Marko’s statement about the matter was simple and to the point. Here is what he had to say, according to Formula 1.

"“We will make our evaluation after Mexico.”"

But he made this claim because he mixed up the race dates of the Mexican Grand Prix and the United States Grand Prix. Here is what he had to say, according to GPToday.

"“For some reason, I thought Mexico was after the US on the calendar.”"

To Marko’s credit, the Mexican Grand Prix only returned to the Formula 1 calendar in the 2015 season following a 23-year hiatus, and from the 2015 season through the 2018 season, it was contested one week after the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas, which was added to the schedule ahead of the 2012 season and has been on it ever since.

This year, however, the Mexican Grand Prix was the 21-race season’s 18th race and took place on Sunday, October 27 while the United States Grand Prix was the season’s 19th race and took place on Sunday, November 3.

The date placement of the latter even caused many complaints within the NASCAR community because of the fact that Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, just about 220 miles north of Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, hosted a Cup Series round of 8 playoff race on the same date, and this race got started only about an hour after the United States Grand Prix.

With Helmut Marko having clarified what he meant and both the Mexican Grand Prix and the United States Grand Prix now being in the books, expect to know which driver will partner Max Verstappen at Red Bull Racing in the 2020 Formula 1 season and which two drivers will be teammates at Alpha Tauri in the very near future.