Christian Horner prints out evidence to dispute Max Verstappen penalty

Red Bull are unlikely to protest Max Verstappen’s penalty at the F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix despite believing it was wrong.

Verstappen was handed a five-second time penalty for illegally passing McLaren’s Oscar Piastri by taking to the Turn 1 run-off area at the start of Sunday’s race in Jeddah.

The four-time world champion remained ahead of Piastri until he served his penalty during his pit stop, which subsequently dropped him behind his rival.

Verstappen ultimately had to settle with second place, crossing the line just 2.8 seconds behind Piastri, who moved into the lead of the world championship with his third win in five races this season.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner presented evidence from Verstappen’s onboard to dispute the punishment when he debriefed with the media on Sunday night.

"Obviously, we spoke to the stewards after the race,” Horner explained. “They think it was a slam dunk. 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 will appeal].

“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, we believe that Max is clearly ahead.

“The rules of engagement they’ve discussed previously - and it was a very harsh decision.

“If we’d have given it up, the problem is you then run in the dirty air as well. Dropping back behind, you’re then at risk with George [Russell]. The best thing to do at that point was get your head down, keep going.

“What was a great shame today was that you can see our pace, versus certainly the McLarens and all other cars in that first stint on the medium, we were in great shape.

“We had to serve the five-second penalty and thereafter on the same basic stint as Oscar we finished 2.6 seconds behind.

“So, without that five-second penalty today, it would have been a win.

“There’s always going to be a difference of opinion over a very marginal decision like that.”

Max Verstappen ‘can’t just disappear’

Horner argued that Verstappen simply had nowhere to go and couldn’t “just disappear”.

“When you look at that [points to screenshot], I can't see how they got to that conclusion,” he said.

"Max can't just disappear at this point in time, so perhaps these rules need a re-look at. I don't know what happened to let them race on the first lap. That just seemed to have been abandoned.”

Explaining their decision, the stewards said: "The Stewards reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video, timing, telemetry and in-car video evidence and determined that car 81 [Piastri] had its front axle at least alongside the mirror of Car 1 [Verstappen] prior to and at the apex of corner 1 when trying to overtake Car 1 on the inside.

"In fact, Car 81 was alongside Car 1 at the apex. Based on the Driver’s Standards Guidelines, it was therefore Car 81’s corner and he was entitled to be given room.

"Car 1 then left the track and gained a lasting advantage that was not given back. He stayed in front of Car 81 and sought to build on the advantage.

"Ordinarily, the baseline penalty for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage is 10 seconds. However, given that this was lap one and turn one incident, we considered that to be a mitigating circumstance and imposed a 5 second time penalty instead.”