Red Bull explain why they told Max Verstappen to let George Russell through

Red Bull have explained their decision to ask Max Verstappen to cede position to George Russell during their controversial late battle at the F1 Spanish Grand Prix.

Verstappen clashed with Russell at Turn 1 following a late Safety Car restart, resulting in the Red Bull driver taking to the escape road and retaining track position ahead of the Mercedes.

Red Bull instructed Verstappen to give the place back to Russell, much to the four-time world champion’s dismay, though it appeared that he was obliging until he ran into the side of Russell at Turn 5 in a red-mist moment.

The incident earned Verstappen a 10-second penalty which ultimately dropped him to 10th.

"It was very, very marginal," Horner told media including Crash.net after Sunday’s race.

"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 and annoyed about because he felt that, one, he'd been left no space and, two, that George hadn't been fully in control.

"It's very hard for the team to try and make that call because you're going on historical precedents. You're trying to pre-empt what the stewards and the race directors are thinking.

“So, I think it would be beneficial to the teams, in that instance, for the race director to make that call and say you either give it back or you get a penalty, rather than having to try and second-guess what the stewards are going to think.

"Max was obviously upset because, first of all, he's had Leclerc take a swipe at him on the straight. And then he's got dive-bombed at Turn 1 by George. And the way that these regulations are now, it's all about where that front axle is.

"We've seen so many occasions this year where penalties have been given. We've seen it been noted. We've seen it gone to the stewards. The next thing is, you're expecting to get a penalty. So that's why it was: 'OK, you know what? We're going to have to give this place up.'"

Why did Red Bull put Verstappen on hard tyres?

Verstappen was left frustrated by Red Bull’s decision to pit him under the late Safety Car and swap him onto fresh hard tyres.

Horner explained this was because Verstappen had no other fresh tyres available and Red Bull were concerned he would be left a sitting-duck had he stayed out on eight-lap old soft tyres with his rivals all on new red-walled tyres.

"The safety car came out at probably the worst possible time in terms of our strategy, because you're faced with the choice of – do you stay out on an eight-lap old, heavily pushed soft tyre, at which point you would get eaten up at the restart, and it looked like there would be circa 10 racing laps left," Horner said.

"Unfortunately, the only set of tyres that we had available was a new set of hards. Our feeling was that a new set of hards was better than an eight-lap-old, heavily degraded set of softs. You don't want to stay on that set of tyres because you know everybody else has taken a fresh set.”

Horner conceded that in hindsight Red Bull would have probably been better off keeping Verstappen out in the lead on his eight-lap old softs.

"In 20/20 hindsight, you'd have left him out. He would have got passed by the two McLarens. Would he have got passed by Leclerc? You never know,” Horner said.

“You make a decision with the information you have at hand. The risk with going onto the three-stop is that in a safety car scenario, in the last third of the race or quarter of the race, you're exposed."