Red Bull Content Pool

General

Red Bull on grid penalty for Bottas: Makes up for that in two laps at Spa

Red Bull on grid penalty for Bottas: "Makes up for that in two laps at Spa"

02-08-2021 09:34 Last update: 12:27
93 Comments

GPblog.com

Helmut Marko is normally not averse to speaking to the media during a Grand Prix weekend when he has something to complain about or celebrate, but the Red Bull Racing advisor was not available for interviews on Sunday afternoon after the Hungarian GP. In fact Marko left the Hungaroring as soon as the chequered flag fell.

That writes Auto Bild the day after the disappointing race in Budapest for Red Bull. The 78-year old Austrian must have been pretty irritated about the fact that once again a Mercedes driver prevented Max Verstappen from competing for the podium or maybe even the victory.

Gridpenalty for Bottas relatively light

Christian Horner did not hide his frustrations from the German medium. "What a great strategy by Mercedes: Valtteri did a super job for them today by taking out both our cars," said the team boss, who doesn't think the grid penalty of five places for Valtteri Bottas is too bad. "He makes up for that in two laps at Spa. It's not a real penalty and is not in proportion to the damage he has done to us."

Apart from the fact that Red Bull only managed to score two points in Hungary with two cars, there is also a lot of financial damage. Since this season there is a budget cap in Formula 1 and that has to be used to pay for repairs. The Milton Keynes based team is being punished twice as hard by someone else's mistake.