(Motorsport-Total.com) – When Helmut Marko left Red Bull at the end of 2025, it was no longer the same project as 20 years earlier, when the Bulls first entered Formula 1. According to Marko, a decisive moment was the death of Dietrich Mateschitz in 2022.
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“Under him, it was a one-man show,” Marko explains in an interview with the Austrian edition of the Zeit, emphasizing: “Dietrich could decide alone, had visions, recognized instantly what was good and what was not.”
“He came to races and immediately developed an understanding of what was important,” says Marko, explaining: “Now at Red Bull there are three managing directors who have to report and so on; it’s more like a typical corporate leadership.”
Accordingly, something also changed for Marko, who, according to his own statement, was friends with Mateschitz. “Mateschitz owned a beautiful alpine house in the mountains of Styria not far from the Red Bull Ring, where we often met,” he reveals.
For him, friendship is “when you can rely on each other, when appointments and agreements are kept,” says Marko. This close relationship no longer existed with Mateschitz’s successor, Oliver Mintzlaff, who, as one of the three managing directors, took responsibility for the Formula 1 project.
“Red Bull has entered a new era; Dietrich Mateschitz’s successors have begun with their style of management,” says Marko. This may also have played a role in his decision to leave Formula 1 at the end of 2025.
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The Era of Helmut Marko at Red Bull
“I approached the new managing director Oliver Mintzlaff and said: ‘Look, I’m quitting’,” says Marko, explaining in this context: “For the job I did, you need passion, you have to burn for it. If you no longer feel that, it becomes tedious.”
Officially, Marko does not attribute his departure to the new Red Bull leadership. Ultimately, the reason was the disappointment “that we did not win the World Championship in 2025. I wanted to draw my own conclusions from that,” he clarifies.
“It would have been our fifth consecutive World Championship, something only Michael Schumacher achieved at Ferrari. It was a huge disappointment,” says Marko, who bid farewell to Formula 1 at the end of 2025 as one of the last faces of Red Bull’s most successful years.
After Mateschitz’s death, Christian Horner and Adrian Newey, among others, had already left the racing team.
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