Red Bull will not appeal the controversial penalty handed to Max Verstappen at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, team principal Christian Horner has confirmed. But the Red Bull chief was clearly not happy with the decision to penalise his driver over the first-corner incident which decided the outcome of the race.
Verstappen started on pole but Oscar Piastri in second place got the better launch off the line. They were side-by-side heading into the chicane, with the McLaren man on the inside line and unwilling to give an inch. As a result, the Red Bull cut the inside of turn two.
Crucially, though, Verstappen retained the lead and did not give it back, with both driver and team confident that they had done nothing wrong. But the stewards did not agree and the Dutchman was given a five-second time penalty which ultimately cost him a shot at victory.
Team principal Horner said he thought the punishment was “very, very harsh” on his driver. And, to illustrate his belief that Verstappen had been ahead of Piastri at the apex of the corner, which would have absolved the Red Bull driver of blame, he brought with him printed screenshots from his driver’s onboard camera with him to a media session after the race.
“Obviously, we spoke to the stewards after the race. They think it was a slam dunk,” he said. And Horner went on to confirm that, despite his misgivings over the decision, Red Bull will not be exercising their right to appeal.
He said: “So the problem is, if we’re to protest it, then they’re going to most likely hold their line. We’ll ask them to have a look at the onboard footage that wasn’t available at the time. We’ll put this in front of them first, but I think it’s highly unlikely.”
Red Bull would have avoided the penalty had they told Verstappen to give the place back to Piastri. That would have given the Dutchman the chance to fight to get the lead back again without having to stop in the pit lane for longer than he would have liked to.
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But when asked why they didn’t do that, Horner simply said they didn’t feel like they had to. He explained: “I thought it was very harsh. We didn’t concede the position because we didn’t believe that he’d done anything wrong. You can quite clearly see at the apex of the corner that Max is clearly ahead.
“The rules of engagement were discussed previously, and it was a very harsh decision. If we’d have given it up, the problem is you then obviously run in the dirty air as well and you are then at risk with George [Russell], so the best thing to do was at that point we got the penalty, get your head down, keep going.
“We were in good shape. We had to serve the five-second penalty, and thereafter, on the same basic stint as Oscar he finished 2.6 seconds behind, so without that five-second penalty today it would have been a win. But there’s always going to be a difference of opinion over a very marginal decision like that.”
To make matter worse for Red Bull, their other car didn’t score any points again. Yuki Tsunoda qualified eighth – his best starting position since his promotion from junior team Racing Bulls – but crashed out on the first lap after contact with Pierre Gasly.
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