Christian Horner produces evidence on board to contest Max Verstappen’s penalty

Red Bull’s boss, Christian Horner, said the team would not protest the penalty decision that cost Max Verstappen for his victory at the Saudi Grand Prix 2025.

The reigning quadruple world champion started on the pole, but finished finalist towards Oscar Piastri from McLaren after receiving a five -second penalty for a tour incident.

Piastri attacked the interior of turn 1 and Verstappen then left for the next part of the chicane to protect his advance.

Verstappen and Red Bull chose not to put the post to Piastri because they felt that the Australian had forced him to leave – but the commissioners judged the opposite and the world champion served his penalty in the pitlane, falling later behind his colleague starting from the row.

He actually decided on the Grand Prix, leaving Verstappen and the Furious team. Horner revealed that it was unlikely that Red Bull is asking for a right of review, although the team could always present potentially new evidence to the commissioners.

“Obviously, we talked to the commissioners after the race,” said Horner. “They think it was a slam from a dunk. So the problem is that if we have to protest it, then they will most likely hold their line.

“We will ask them to take a look at the on -board images that were not available at the time. We will first put it in front of them, but I think it’s very improbable.”

Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing

Photo of: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Horner said that when producing screenshots of the Board of the Broaded camera from Verstappen to demonstrate that his driver was ahead of the Turn 1 Apex.

“I thought it was very hard,” he added. “We did not concede the post because we did not believe that he had done something wrong.

“You can clearly see at the top of the corner that Max is clearly in advance. The rules of engagement were discussed previously, and it was a very severe decision.

“If we have abandoned it, the problem is that you are obviously running in the dirty air too and you are then at risk with George (Russell), so the best thing to do was then that we got the penalty, lower our heads.

“We were in good condition. We had to purge the penalty of five seconds, and thereafter, on the same basic passage as Oscar, he finished 2.6 seconds late, so without this penalty of five seconds today, it would have been a victory.

“But there will always be a difference in opinion on a very marginal decision like that.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Gabriel Bouys – AFP – Getty Images

Horner said the fact that the commissioners had distributed a five -second penalty instead of the usual 10 seconds suggested that they were also in two minds on the incident at the time.

“Yeah, I think they were,” he said. “When you look at this (points to screenshot), I don’t see how they got to this conclusion.

“Max cannot simply disappear at that time, so maybe these rules need a new look. I don’t know what allowed them to run in the first round. It seemed to have been abandoned.”