Horner explains: Here is why Red Bull told Verstappen to give the position back

18:59, 01 Jun

Updated: 19:02, 01 Jun

byKada Sarkozi

The Spanish Grand Prix had a chaotic restart, and Max Verstappen was handed a ten-second time penalty and three penalty points for causing a collision after making contact with George Russell. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner also shared his thoughts on what happened.

After explaining that Red Bull ended up switching for the hard tyres when the Safety Car came out because they committed to a three-stop strategy, Horner reflected on the restart.

"We took the stop, Max had a snap at the restart, Charles [Leclerc] got alongside him, looked like he pulled left on him, which is what they're up in front of the stewards now. And then George obviously tried to capitalise on that into Turn 1 and it was very, very marginal," he told GPblog among others.

The stewards later marked that Verstappen would not have needed to hand back the position to the Mercedes driver, however, his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase told him to do so. Horner then explained why Red Bull made that decision.

"Now, 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. It looked for all tense and purpose that it was going to be a penalty. So there 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."

On Verstappen making contact with Russell

While giving the space back, the two drivers collided. Looking at that part of the incident, Horner continued: "So after the conversation with his engineer, he elected to give the space back. At Turn 5, there was contact between the two cars. I haven't had a chance to speak to Max from his side, but obviously the stewards deem that he caused a collision and got ten-seconds and some penalty points, unfortunately, which obviously was very frustrating because it leaves us with one point out of the afternoon, what should have been an easy podium."

Horner yet to speak to Verstappen

Talking about Verstappen's frustration, the team principal said: "You could hear that he was frustrated, he didn't agree. You can hear with both Charles and George. I haven't had a chance to speak to him because he's had to speak to you guys. And now he's up in the stewards talking about the Charles incident. So it's something that we'll discuss internally and look at."

As a result, the defending world champion is a single penalty point away from a suspension. About the Dutchman having to be more careful, Horner added: "You can never guarantee anything. I mean, he's just got to keep his nose clean the next couple of races. Then the first points come off at the end of June."