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Marko: Mercedes have caused Red Bull three million euros in damages

The Red Bull advisor has suggested that Formula 1 should consider handing out harsher penalties to drivers who cause significant damage to their rivals.

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has revealed his team's repair bill adds up to three million euros due to incidents at the British and Hungarian Grand Prix. Max Verstappen suffered a heavy 52G accident at Silverstone after his title rival Lewis Hamilton was deemed to have caused a collision. At the following race in Hungary, Verstappen was the victim of an incident caused by Valtteri Bottas, who hit Lando Norris to send the McLaren driver into the back of Verstappen. Bottas also hit Sergio Perez in a secondary collision just seconds later. "Until the last two races, the first half of the season was positive," Marko told Motorsport Magazin. "Then everything came together in a negative way. "As a result, we have to ask ourselves whether the penalty system is justified after two errors by Mercedes. Maybe there should be different standards [levels of penalties]. "Antonio Giovinazzi gets a stop/go penalty after speeding in the pit lane and Sebastian Vettel is disqualified for not having enough fuel in his tank, while the 0.3-litres that was in his tank would have been enough for control [a fuel sample]. "On the other hand, we have two broken engines due to [the actions of] Mercedes drivers and that means that we have to take a hard hit financially. We have three million damages and that's an amount we can't easily find anymore." Hamilton was awarded a 10-second time penalty but went on to win the British GP following his incident with Verstappen, whilst Bottas will take a five-grid place penalty at Formula 1's next race in Spa. Marko thinks the penalties are too lenient. "Such things can be the decisive factor in the title fight," said Marko. "That is why we need to look at it differently and whether the drivers who caused it have been negligent and whether something can be arranged. "For example, that this damage does not count in the budget cap or that we can use some kind of joker."

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