Formula 1 fans owe Helmut Marko a massive apology

It's no secret that Red Bull Formula 1 advisor Marko has made controversial statements in the past. Several, in fact. But on that same note, it's also no surprise when his comments become the low-hanging fruit for criticism, given how easy some of his comments have been to criticize for their relative insensitivity and sometimes straight-up crude nature.

Never has the latter been truer than it has over the past several months, going back to the end of last season but highlighted in Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix, regarding his comments about Lando Norris' mental weaknesses when it comes to competing for a season-long world championship.

Here's what Marko had to say last year when asked if he felt his driver, then-three-time reigning world champion Max Verstappen, or the McLaren driver had the upper hand in the title battle.

“We know that Norris has some mental weaknesses," Marko said. "I’ve read about some of the rituals he needs to do to perform well on race day.”

Yes, Marko could have kept it simple and simply discussed the fact that Verstappen is a once-in-a-generation driver. He won his fourth title last year with a team that was third in the constructor standings, the lowest with which any driver has won the crown since 1983, and he did it against a resurgent McLaren team.

But one of the reasons why he was able to do it is because of how many self-inflicted wounds Norris was responsible for. Despite having the clear-cut top car from his maiden victory in Miami in early May, he was only able to add two more victories before Verstappen sealed the title, and Verstappen, who picked up the pieces and added several other wins of his own along the way, still managed to seal it with three races remaining.

As good as Verstappen is when it comes to getting into the heads of his opponents, Norris has gotten into his own head well more than he can allow if he truly wants to contend for a world title.

Yet Brown turned Marko's comments into something they weren't, insinuating that he was attacking Norris' mental health.

"I read Helmut's comments, which I thought were disappointing but not surprising," he said. "Lando has been an ambassador for mental health. Toto [Wolff] has spoken about mental health. It's a serious issue we've tried to talk about, to bring to the forefront, to make it okay to talk about, so to maybe kind of choose, poking at that situation, is pretty inappropriate and sets us back 10, 20 years."

I'm not sure who needs to hear this, but there is a big difference between suffering from very real conditions such as anxiety and depression and simply not having the mental strength to be the best in the world at something or perform at the highest level in key moments.

Marko made sure to point out that Brown's comments were completely misdirected after they had gone viral.

"I was asked who is going to win the world championship, and then I said that it will be Max, because he is the strongest mentally and because he is the fastest driver," he said. "And if you look at how many times Max wins positions or maintains his position at the start and how Lando does in that, I think [it becomes obvious]."

Not that this needs clarification (again), but Verstappen did win last year's world championship, giving him four in a row.

For years, we heard all about how Lewis Hamilton could wear down his rivals and get in their heads. Their mental strength was questioned, and their inability to compete with the seven-time world champion over the course of an entire season was highlighted whenever Hamilton got the better of them.

This is literally no different, at all, and the same can be said in any sport.

But of course, this kind of hypocritical remark is coming from the same person who knowingly embellished last year's allegations against Red Bull team principal Christian Horner for sexual misconduct in the workplace, and he quite literally admitted it afterward.

"Our sport, perhaps more than others, though I wouldn’t claim to be an expert on other sports, has a highly competitive and political aspect," Brown said in an interview with TechStuff host and Kaleidoscope founder/CEO Oz Woloshyn earlier this year. "The goal is to make ourselves as fast as possible, but there’s also a strategy of destabilizing the competition.

"We try to create tension or disrupt other teams, which isn’t unique to F1 but is particularly pronounced here. You’re constantly fighting for employees, drivers, sponsors, and media attention plays a big role. If you can generate some instability in rival teams—and it doesn’t always work in our favor—it can slow them down while we focus on speeding up."

Brown is more worried about "slowing them down" than actually being accurate or serious when talking about something as delicate as sexual misconduct. To him, using claims of sexual misconduct as a mere means to an end is totally justified. To him it's all a big joke, and it's a slap in the face to any actual victims of targeted harassment.

So the overreaction to – and twisting of – Marko's relatively benign Norris claims was merely another McLaren cheap shot, and the fact that Norris has continued to struggle in big moments has largely unearthed the fact that Marko was 100% correct.

It was yet another example of him using a very serious issue as a mere means to an end just to get people fired up against one of his archrivals, when the reality of the situation was that they were intentionally taken out of context to become "inappropriate" just so that they could be weaponized.

Should anyone have been surprised that he had the audacity to turn a harmless analytical observation about the world championship battle into a so-called attack on mental health after he admitted to doing something similar to Horner regarding a separate delicate matter?

It's the definition of low, and again, it's a slap in the face to those who actually struggle with such issues.

But as they always do, the mainstream media put in overtime and went to work for McLaren, spinning Marko's comments into something they weren't. The remarks were supposedly a tirade against the importance of mental health, and they were labeled as an insult to those who suffer from anxiety and depression.

Norris himself is a mental health advocate, and more power to him for that. He has been very open about some of his own struggles off the race track, and his willingness to be publicly vulnerable has been a beacon of light for those who need help in those areas.

Marko, simply put, was not referring to any of that at all.

Now, unfortunately for Norris, he continues to prove Marko right – on the race track, to be specific.

Whether we like it or not, Norris has historically been known for trying to shade the successes of others, pinning it down to the strength of their cars over their actual skill level. He most notably did it to Hamilton multiple times, even as recently as last year.

Yet Norris has emerged from the 2025 season's first 10 races with only two wins to teammate Oscar Piastri's five in a McLaren that has been the clear-cut class of the field.

Going back to the last year, he has thrown points away on a number of occasions with mind-boggling moves that are far from befitting of a true world championship contender. Whether it's bottling starts from pole or demonstrating a level of race craft that wouldn't cut it in a number of feeder series, he has quite literally been his own worst enemy on more than one occasion.

That's all Marko was getting at. Objectively speaking, when it comes to the crucial moments, he simply hasn't demonstrated the ability to stay cool and deliver.

Again, it's no different than any other sport. You look at someone like Patrick Mahomes. He may not be statistically the best regular season quarterback, but there is something to be said for simply knowing how to win and knowing how to deliver in clutch moments. There's a reason he has been to five of the last six Super Bowls and won three of them.

That factor is something that has simply eluded Norris.

On Sunday, he made perhaps his worst mistake yet, crashing out of the Canadian Grand Prix while making an ill-advised pass attempt on Piastri.

Norris had just overtaken Piastri, but Piastri had used DRS to get back around him. Then coming down the front straightaway of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Norris dove to the inside, went into the grass, and made contact with Piastri's car.

While Piastri's car was not damaged, Norris was knocked out of the race after hitting the wall.

One thing you have to say for Norris is that on Sunday, he took full responsibility for the action, which is a level of maturity that he might not have had – well, quite frankly, he did not have – last year. It's a step in the right direction when it comes to being able to handle such key moments.

But at the same time, it was obvious that it was his fault. It would have looked awful had he not taken the blame, given the senseless nature of the collision.

And for those criticizing McLaren for not having Piastri move out of the way since Norris was faster, give me a break. McLaren already have a nearly insurmountable lead in the constructor standings, and their two drivers entered the day separated by 10 points for tops in the driver standings.

Piastri had every right to fight for the position. More specifically, he had every right not to simply move over and let Norris through.

Even Norris, again to his credit, took to exception to those leading, bait-type questions about McLaren not ordering Piastri to let him through. He had the maturity to rise above the nonsense.

And oddly enough, it wasn't even Piastri fighting for position that played a role in Norris wrecking himself out of the race. Norris went for a move that was never there, made contact with Piastri, and plowed into the wall.

Yet we're supposed to believe that Marko should be behind bars for pointing out Norris' lack of mental strength and inability to keep his head in crucial moments?

Whether or not Norris, who was definitely quicker at this stage in the race, could have made the move in the closing laps, we'll never know. But instead of, at the very least, settling for a 12-point deficit to his teammate, he made the most ill-advised move of the season, and probably of his career, and he emerged from his car now 22 points behind.

He knew it, too.

And that brings us back to the premise of the article. The reaction to Marko's comments last year was completely unjustified. They were taken out of context and turned into something they weren't, when the reality is that they were completely accurate, and as Norris continues to struggle to get out of his own way, they still are.

Given Marko's history of insensitive comments, sure, maybe he is one of Formula 1's "bad guys". But when it comes to the comments he made about Norris last year, it's starting – really continuing – to look like he is owed a massive apology, because the spin that was put on those remarks was beyond ridiculous.

They were weaponized into something that was totally misrepresentative of what he actually said, merely for "political" gain. Just ask Zak Brown.