Brawn relieved that Verstappen gave position back: 'Don't want it that way'

Max Verstappen missed out on victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix after handing the lead back to Lewis Hamilton. Red Bull Racing gave him the instruction almost immediately after they had spoken to race control about it.

At that point, Verstappen wasn't even officially under investigation for his action, but based on the advice of the race committee, the team decided not to wait for that. Besides, Red Bull probably thought Verstappen had enough speed to make a second attack.

Track limits overshadow battle

The lack of clarity surrounding track limits took some of the shine off the end result, but according to Ross Brawn, sporting director at Liberty Media, the same would have happened otherwise. He said in his latest column for Formula1.com.

"I think Red Bull made the right call to tell Verstappen to give the position back to Hamilton, after he ran wide on passing the defending champion. If Verstappen had pulled out a sufficient gap after an infringement and won the race, that would have left a nasty taste. We don’t want to see races won in that manner," Brawn said.