Helmut Marko reveals car changes Red Bull are planning that should give 'significant time gain'

Helmut Marko has said that the Red Bull car is a little too heavy and that the team is planning some changes to the RB18 that could give them a ‘significant time gain.’

The Milton-Keynes based team have certainly been going along nicely this season in terms of outright pace, and they’ll hope their double retirement at the start of the campaign in Bahrain will prove to be nothing more than an early-season anomaly.

Certainly, they bounced back in Saudi Arabia with Max Verstappen winning the Grand Prix, after Sergio Perez had taken pole, and they appear the biggest rivals to Ferrari at the moment.

Marko, too, believes that the Scuderia have the strongest package at the moment in terms of their car but has suggested that Red Bull are looking at knocking some weight off of their car in the near future, which should give them a boost in terms of quicker lap times:

“Ferrari has the most all-around car. It is fast in all conditions, with any type of tyre, with any temperature. From the start,” he told Servus TV.

“Our car is too heavy. If you’re 10kg over the minimum weight, that’s three and a costs us half a second to four-tenths of a second (slower) on a track like Jeddah. Reducing weight means more expensive materials, which are lighter, and new parts have to be made as well.

“Our car is definitely more difficult to tune, but we will lose some weight in Imola. That should give us a significant time advantage, time gain in other words.

“So the plan now is to combine the next big upgrade with a lighter build to stay within this financial framework. We can’t build parts twice.”

It’s certainly an interesting prospect, the thought of the Red Bull getting even quicker, but then every car is bound to improve as each team gets to