{"id":181937,"date":"2025-06-13T20:07:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T20:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/181937\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T20:07:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T20:07:14","slug":"russells-radio-comments-influenced-red-bulls-decision-to-let-him-past-verstappen-%c2%b7-racefans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/181937\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell’s radio comments influenced Red Bull’s decision to let him past Verstappen \u00b7 RaceFans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has explained how the team slipped up by advising Max Verstappen<\/a> to give up a position to George Russell at the last race.<\/p>\n

The decision backfired badly as their frustrated driver collided with Russell as he passed, incurring a penalty which leaves him on the brink of an automatic ban. Making matters worse, the stewards later confirmed Red Bull did not have to give up the position to Russell.<\/p>\n

The situation unfolded after the pair clashed when Russell tried to pass Verstappen at turn one when the race restarted on lap 61. Verstappen went off on the outside of the corner and stayed ahead of the Mercedes driver.<\/p>\n

Russell began to describe the incident on his radio, saying \u201cI was up the inside, he just went\u2026\u201d before his race engineer Marcus Dudley interrupted: \u201cI saw it, I saw.\u201d They did not discuss the incident further.<\/p>\n

\"Verstappen<\/a>Transcript: \u201cIt\u2019s a shame, but that\u2019s the rules\u201d: Full radio from Verstappen\u2019s acrimonious Spanish GP<\/a><\/strong>Two laps after the contact Red Bull told Verstappen to let Russell past him. Horner said the team made the decision because they feared the stewards would penalise Verstappen if they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a process,\u201d he told Sky. \u201cThe problem is you have one lap to make that decision as per the regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe still [photographs] showed that, axle to axle, George was ahead. George was on the radio making a large noise about \u2018yeah, he needs to give that back, he needs to give that back\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stewards ruled Verstappen was entitled to keep his position ahead of Russell because the Mercedes driver had lost control of his car and forced him off the track. Horner said the team focused on the fact Russell\u2019s car had drawn fully alongside Verstappen\u2019s.<\/p>\n

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He drew a comparison to the situation on the first lap of this year\u2019s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, where Verstappen was penalised for leaving the track and rejoining ahead of Oscar Piastri<\/a>. The McLaren driver had passed Verstappen on the inside approaching turn one and had not lost control of his car.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so marginal,\u201d said Horner. \u201cObviously the argument [is] \u2018was he fully in control of the car\u2019? George would have argued that he was, but as painful experience showed in Jeddah it was all about where that front axle was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horner said the team asked race control for their opinion on the incident. Race control stopped advising teams on racing incidents three years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had been referred to the stewards,\u201d Horner explained. \u201cWe\u2019d asked race control for their feedback and nothing came back in that so you\u2019re trying to pre-empt what three stewards and the race director are thinking. And at that point [we] felt, \u2018do you know what, for two points, we need to concede this place\u2019. So that was the decision we made and it\u2019s so, so marginal.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Verstappen was never going to be penalised for the original incident with Russell, his reaction to Red Bull\u2019s call led to a collision with the Mercedes which did prompt a penalty. His 10-second penalty dropped him five places to 10th and he was given three penalty points on his licence which leaves him one away from an automatic ban.<\/p>\n

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\"Max<\/a>Feature: Is Verstappen \u2018too big to ban\u2019 in Formula 1\u2019s showbusiness era?<\/a><\/strong>\u201cMax apologised to the team,\u201d said Horner. \u201cHe knows that the penalty that obviously went with that was severe and you\u2019re always learning in this life and there will be lessons taken from that race for sure.\u201d <\/p>\n

Verstappen\u2019s conduct has provoked criticism in the past. He has been involved in a series of on-track incidents with drivers including Lewis Hamilton<\/a> and Lando Norris, and lashed out at Esteban Ocon in the paddock following an incident between the pair during the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2018.<\/p>\n

Horner admitted his driver can react \u201cemotionally\u201d which he said is a trait of other past great racing drivers. \u201cHe\u2019s a driver that drives [with] a huge amount of emotion and it\u2019s part of [what] gives him the brilliance that he has, the emotion that he drives with. He wears his heart on his sleeve and occasionally you make misjudgements and we\u2019ve seen it with all the greats, whether it was Senna or Schumacher or all the great champions over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

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2025 Spanish Grand Prix
\nBrowse all 2025 Spanish Grand Prix articles<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has explained how the team slipped up by advising Max Verstappen to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[59405,4199,707,4200,9824,1073,226,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-181937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-2025-spanish-grand-prix","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-george-russell","13":"tag-max-verstappen","14":"tag-red-bull","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114677864715024539","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}