Horner contradicts reason for F1 stewards penalty – As the F1 circus assembles for its first trip of 2025 to the USA, debate over a number of decisions made in Saudi Arabia have resurfaced. Christian Horner as admitted the team took a tactical decision not to tell Max Verstappen to hand the place back to Oscar Piastri, after the Red Bull driver made a poor start forcing him to leave the track at turn one to retain the lead.
The race stewards issued just a five second penalty for the transgression, given this was a first lap of the race incident, where the chaos of 20 cars all fighting over the same piece of asphalt often leads to a number of ‘racing incidents.’
“If we had given the position back… we chose not to at the time, because it would have put us under pressure from the cars behind, plus the benefit of clean air is never to be underestimated,” the Red Bull boss tells the BBC. There was a heated debate amongst the broadcaster’s analysts as to whether this decision in fact cost Max Verstappen a shot at the race win.
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This is based on the fact he finished less than three seconds behind Piastri and so remove the five second penalty and Verstappen would have been in the net lead of the race. Further, the world champion’s pace in the opening stint was better than that of the McLaren driver who failed to stick to the tail of the Red Bull.
Yet when Piastri pitted for fresh rubber, Verstappen was told to stay out for two more laps and on the second it was visible in the timing that Oscar was closing down the gap quickly. Max re-appeared now four seconds behind Piastri after his one and only pit stop, a gap he reduced over the closing laps, although the McLaren driver was suffering in traffic.
Horner added that allowing the McLaren driver into the lead to avoid a penalty would not have given Verstappen a better chance to win. “No, I think overtaking at that circuit, as you saw, is so hard, and when you run in the dirty air, to get close, particularly in that awesomely quick first sector. There would have been no chance,” was the Red Bull bosses perspective.
Whilst Red Bull did not protest the stewards decision,. Horner appears to contradict the reason for his driver being slapped with a penalty. He said it was just five seconds and not ten because the stewards felt it was “a very marginal call.”
Horner contradicts F1 stewards reasoning
However, in the FIA published document post the chequered flag, the ruling of the stewards was couched as follows: “It was [Piastri’s] corner and he was entitled to be given room,” and that Verstappen “left the track and gained a lasting advantage that was not given back.” It continued, going to note, there was a deliberate attempt for Max to go on to build a sufficient lead to nullify the time penalty.
The mitigation given for the decision to half the time penalty was “this was [a] lap one and turn one incident,” the stewards noted. Horner went on to suggest a the team’s decision to not allow Piastri by was vindicated given it gave Red Bull a glimpse of the improvements in the RB21. “On that first stint we were able to pull away,” he said. “On the second stint we were 4.8 seconds behind when we left the pit lane and we finished the race 2.6 seconds behind Oscar.
“So we had the pace in that race to win it outright, which has really been the first time, I think, this year that we’ve had the upper hand in pace on race day to the McLarens.”
Dr. Helmut Marko though is not optimistic for Red Bull’s hopes in Miami. Writing in his Speedweek column, the Austrian observes the heat will be searing in southern Florida, something the RB21 does not particularly enjoy.
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RB21 ‘not good in the heat’
“What do the findings from the first five races mean for the upcoming race in Miami?” Marko wrote. “Once again, we’re talking about a completely different track, but above all we’re expecting higher temperatures.”
The Red Bull advisor points out that in Jeddah third practice, which took place during the day when the temperatures were much warmer than in qualifying, McLaren were a whopping eight tenths quicker than the rest of the field.
“We and the other opponents expected McLaren to drive away from everyone. But that didn’t happen. In Miami, we still expect the conditions to be more in McLaren’s favour,” Marko concludes.
The apparent concern expressed by Red Bull is that in the hotter conditions the operating window for the RB21 is incredibly small and hard to find while tinkering with setup. By way of contrast, the McLaren MCL39 appears get better as the temperatures rise.
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“Our task at the moment is to develop a broader working window for our race car; and also to reduce certain weaknesses of the car before the races in Europe and thus improve the basic speed of the car,” Marko concluded.
The 2025 Pirelli compounds have been redesigned to reduce thermal overheating which means the cars in theory should be able to follow more closely. And for Miami the compounds selected are a step softer than used in last year’s event.
In the other Red Bull car, Yuki Tsunoda will have his third attempt to demonstrate he is worthy of the promotion he received in Japan at Liams Lawson’s cost. There were signs last time out in Jeddah that the Japanese driver was getting to grips with the tricky to drive RB21.
For the first time this season, Perez manhandled the second Red Bull car into the top ten shootout in qualifying. That said he was almost a second off the pace of his team mate who claimed a thrilling pole position in the dying seconds of the session, just 100th of a second quicker than McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
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The organisers of the Mexican Grand Prix have now signed a new deal to keep their slot on the calendar until 2028. Yet when compared to other recently renewed race agreements something strange stands out.
The Mexican Grand Prix has now had three stints on the F1 calendar, the first being between 1962-1970 at the Magdalena Mixhuca circuit on the outskirts of Mexico city and like Monza it was located in parkland. Following the death of top Mexican driver, Pedro Rodriguez, in 1970, the scheduled event for 1971 was cancelled due to an expected lack of interest.
Several attempts were made to revive the Mexican Grand Prix and finally in 1986 it returned to the renamed circuit, now the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez after the two fallen Mexican drivers. But the state of the track, the decline of Mexico City itself, not only with air pollution problems but also a rapid and unstable city population increase, saw Formula One leave again after the race in 1992….. READ MORE ON THIS STORY
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Is it worth pointing out that this “tactical decision” by horner is actually cheating……I have no issue with max or red bull but F1 remains the arena of liars and cheats which detracts from the skill of the drivers and the risks they take. The history of F1 is a history of cheating to gain advantage, I don’t really watch it any more and none of the lying and catcalling team leads are people I would want to be role models for my children.