Red Bull Racing left Verstappen in the dark: He had no clue about protests lodged

18:35, 16 Jun

Updated: 18:38, 16 Jun

bySavannah Lenz

After the Canadian Grand Prix, Christian Horner spoke to the media about lodging the protests against George Russell. He revealed Red Bull Racing decided to do that without Max Verstappen.

Red Bull Racing lodged two protests against George Russell for his behaviour under safety car conditions. When asked if they thought the Mercedes driver was trying to goad Max until a penalty, Horner said, “You could hear from George's press comments yesterday. His objective was reasonably clear. I don't think there was any surprises with that.”

Horner then doubled down, explaining, “It's certainly not personal to George. It's the way the regulations are.”

“The regulations are pretty binary, pretty clear, so we put in a protest. Regulations are very clear about the safety car. If you remember Checo back in Singapore in 22, got two penalties for it. So there were very clear precedents.”

Max Verstappen and George Russell at the post-race press conference of the Canada GP.

Verstappen was unaware of the Red Bull protest

When asked if Verstappen had anything to do with lodging the protests, he said, “No, not at all. Max was talking to you guys and had no idea.”

“It's within the competitor's right to raise a protest. It's 2,000 euros per protest and we were surprised that they weren't noted and sent to the stewards. So therefore, you have the right as a competitor to do that.”

After their meeting with the stewards, the two were seen leaving together. Shortly after that, Verstappen boarded his jet before the verdict was ever released.