Red Bull paddock is fairly confident about their chances in the Spanish Grand Prix. Dr. Helmut Marko in particular is a confident man about their chances for the Sunday race. Even though the RB18s of Max and Perez were fifth and seventh fastest respectively in FP2, Marko thinks they will win the race ahead of the competition.

“We, Mercedes and then Ferrari,” is his prediction of the Spanish Grand Prix. The confidence stems out of a lot of factors for Marko, the tire wear and tear is one. The Red Bull paddock is confident about the car’s performance in the long run. And they feel the consistency will let them overcome the competition.

To explain the confidence, Dr. Helmut Marko explained, “Our long run is very encouraging. We only lose on a lap in sector 2, there are not two corners where we lose that, you can sort that out. But in the long lap both cars were on both medium and hard good for wear and tear.”

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The Red Bull, among others, has come with a host of upgrades for the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Red Bull’s last upgrade got Max back-to-back wins and they will hope for more of the same. And with Perez’s consistent performances as well, Red Bull would not like to lose this momentum. The momentum they need to catch up to the leader’s Ferrari.

Red Bull might have a copycat on the grid

The Aston Martin challenger for the Spanish Grand Prix caught some criticism from Red Bull. The upgrades they brought to Barcelona very closely resemble the RB18. This caused quite a stir in the paddocks and FIA was involved.

However, after an examination, Aston Martin was declared legal. Helmut Marko had some thoughts on the matter, though. He said, “We only know that data was downloaded – we cannot say what happened to it. We cannot prove that they were used.”

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The FIA did not find any proof that Red Bull data was necessary used to build the Aston Martin car for the Spanish GP. Hence, the Aston Martin car is completely legal and fit to be driven on race day.