Red Bull’s motorsport adviser, Helmut Marko, firmly placed both his feet in his mouth last week, the first foot was inserted after the 2023 Italian Grand Prix when issuing a veiled insult regarding Sergio Perez, blaming Perez’s inconsistent results in the 2023 Formula One season on his supposed “South American” cultural background, then the second foot was inserted with an attempted apology calling out Perez’s inconsistency due to him being “Mexican” – forcing him to issue another apology.
The Austrian Marko, issued the initial comment on Red Bull’s Servus TV website: “We know that he has problems in qualifying, he has fluctuations in form, he is South American and he is just not as completely focused in his head as Max [Verstappen] is or as Sebastian [Vettel].”
Aside from the continent of South America producing five-time Formula 1 winner Juan Manuel Fangio as well as three-time F1 winner Ayrton Senna, there is the fact that Perez is, of course, not from South America, as Mexico is geographically located in North America – but that fact did not escape Marko in his first attempted apology this week via Austrian website www.oe24.at: “It wasn’t meant that way. I meant that a Mexican has a different mentality than a German or a Dutchman. But who knows, maybe it’s controlled.”
After his first attempt at an apology failed miserably, Marko’s second attempt went smoother by not mentioning Perez’s cultural background at all.