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Red Bull boss Christian Horner has revealed the thought process behind asking Max Verstappen to give George Russell the position, and it stems from the fact that the team felt that the driver could potentially be penalized. At the safety car restart in the F1 Spanish GP, Verstappen was trying to defend his position against Charles Leclerc going into T1.
The driver was, however, also being lined up by Russell, who was immediately behind him. The Mercedes driver made slight contact with the 4x champion going into turn 1, leading to Verstappen taking evasive action and going off track.
While Max Verstappen went off-track and retained his position, the move was being investigated by the stewards. In what was a pre-emptive move by Red Bull, the Dutch driver was ordered to give the position to George Russell. The 4x champion was not happy with the call, and while ceding position, he ended up making what appeared to be an intentional contact with the Mercedes driver.
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The driver hence got a 10-second penalty plus three F1 penalty points for the move. Talking to F1.com, Christian Horner explained why Red Bull told Verstappen to cede position to Russell. Explaining how this was down to the team fearing a penalty, Horner said:
"Max had a snap at the restart. Charles got alongside him [and] it looked like he pulled left on him. Then George obviously tried to capitalise on that into Turn 1 and it was very, very marginal. On recent experience and looking at recent incidents, obviously it’s subjective. You’ve asked for guidance from the FIA, from the referee. Essentially, there’s nothing come back. You can see that it’s been reported, it’s going to the stewards."
He added:
“It looked for all intents and purposes that it was going to be a penalty. So, therefore, the instruction was given to Max to give that place back, which he was obviously upset about and annoyed about, because he felt that, one, he’d been left no space and, two, that George hadn’t been fully in control. So, after a conversation with his engineer, he elected to give the place back at Turn 5, [and] there was contact between the two cars.”
Christian Horner sidesteps the question about Max Verstappen's move
Red Bull was questioned about Max Verstappen's move for which he was given a 10-second penalty and three F1 penalty points, to which Christian Horner said that he had not had a chance to talk to his driver. The team principal did, however, concede that the penalty hurts the team big time, as it means that an easy podium went begging. He said (via the aforementioned source):
"I haven’t had a chance to speak to Max from his side, but obviously the stewards deemed that he caused a collision and got 10 seconds and some penalty points, unfortunately. It obviously was very frustrating, because it leaves us with one point [10th place] out of the afternoon, what should have been an easy podium.”
At the end of a disastrous race weekend for Max Verstappen, the driver is now 49 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri. With 15 races left, the gap is still quite huge and would take a lot of effort to overcome.
