Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko had to issue and apology from his side after the comments made on Sergio Perez that offended people.
After fighting his way through to finish second in F1 Italian GP, Red Bull’s Perez garnered praise from his team after putting up a solid drive fighting against the likes of George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to get to that position.
But amid this praise, Red Bull advisor Marko touched on his South American origin – even though Perez is not from South America but southern part of North America – which offended majority of the fans on social media. The Austrian linked his lack focus to him not being from Europe when talking about Max Verstappen and or Sebastian Vettel.
“The Italian GP was surely one of Checo Perez’s best weekends and we know about his problems in qualifying, which is where he has his doubts,” Marko said on ServusTV post race. “Let’s remember that he is South American and so his head is not as focused as Max Verstappen or as Sebastian Vettel was, but racing is his forte and he had a very good race.
“Overtaking three drivers, in George Russell and the Ferrari drivers, was not easy, as we knew they were faster on the straights. In the race, Perez did everything right and now we have circuits like Singapore, where he has already won and which suit him better.”
After the uproar on social media, ServusTV has now issues a statement of apology from Marko regarding the same. So far Perez has remained mum on the topic as his Red Bull seat remains under fire due to the mixed results he has had so far.
“Referring to my interview in the Sport und Talk program on ServusTV on Monday September 4th, I would like to make it clear that I am firmly convinced that you cannot generalize about people, regardless of their culture, nationality or ethnic origin,” said Marko in the statement.
“I wanted to underline that although Checo had a great race at Monza, Checo’s performances have been very variable this year. It was wrong to make a connection to his origins. I would like to apologize deeply for this.
“I would like to apologize for my offensive remark and want to make it absolutely clear that I do not believe that we can generalize about the people from any country, any race , any ethnicity. I was trying to make a point that Checo has fluctuated in his performance this year, but it was wrong to attribute this to his cultural heritage.”
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