Farewell To Helmut Marko, Ignorant Loudmouth

On Tuesday morning, Red Bull Racing officially announced that Helmut Marko would be stepping down from his position as Red Bull motorsport advisor, which the 82-year-old Austrian had held for two decades. His exit comes shortly after the sacking of former team principal Christian Horner, with whom Marko had a more-or-less public power struggle over the past couple of years; in the end, Marko only spent a few months as the sole remaining stalwart of the Red Bull dynasty. Car designing guru Adrian Newey left for Aston Martin, cool-headed sporting director Jonathan Wheatley took his talents to Sauber, CEO Christian Horner was ground up by the dynastic machinery's gears, and then there was Marko, who—well, what exactly did Helmut Marko do?

For very casual fans, the role of "motorsport advisor" can be a bit impenetrable, and belies the high-ranking nature of Marko's appointment. He was employed not by Red Bull Racing, but reported directly to Red Bull, the energy drink company, and was a close friend of late Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz. From a spectator's perspective, Marko's role could easily appear to be to take every opportunity to make some public statements, all the better for how loudly he made them. The most notable of these statements came in the form of racist stereotyping of his own drivers.