Marko: We've a lot in development updates are coming

While Red Bull may have held the aces in the first three rounds of this season, at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya this weekend they were unable to stop Lewis Hamilton from claiming victory and extend his championship lead over Verstappen to 14 points.

The Dutchman said after the race in Spain: "We need a faster car, it’s very simple."

And it appears his wish shall be granted according to Marko who told F1-Insider: "We are only at the start of the championship. Therefore it makes little sense at the moment to look at the standings of the championship.

"We have a lot in development, the updates are coming, we just don't know when the updates can be deployed at the moment."

Interestingly, Honda F1 technical boss Toyoharu Tanabe described second place as "frustrating" in his post-Barcelona report: “Here in Spain, Max finished second for Red Bull Racing Honda, just as he did last week in Portugal.

"It was a somewhat frustrating result, after a great start saw him take the lead from second on the grid. Hamilton was put on a different strategy and caught Max in the closing stages and we have to accept that today, he and Mercedes had the edge in terms of performance and teamwork," explained Tanabe.

Teams this year are faced with fielding their current car, with as many resources available to develop the car, but those resources are depleted because, by all accounts, teams are well down the road with their all-new 2022 cars.

But this is not an issue for the Bulls says Marko: "We're not going to throw away a world championship because we started focusing too early on the 2022 season."

Hamilton's stalking of Verstappen and subsequent victory on Sunday showed how much progress had been made with the W12 compared to Imola where it was no match for the RB16B.

After watching Verstappen's potential win, plus his stellar efforts to thwart Hamilton, turn into second place, Marko conceded: "Mercedes was simply faster than us in Spain. If we had had a faster car, we would not have the strategy problem.

"Unfortunately, we now have our backs to the wall and thus we have to work hard to make our car better," added Marko whose team are now 29 points behind Mercedes in the 2021 F1 constructors' standings ahead of Round 5, the Monaco Grand Prix.