Analysis: What went wrong at Red Bull before Max Verstappen clashed with George Russell

Max Verstappen’s deficit to Oscar Piastri nearly doubled in Barcelona. With three additional penalty points, he also faces the threat of a race ban. What has gone wrong? Here is a look at Verstappen’s clash with George Russell and Red Bull’s mistakes that preceded it.

Verstappen looked on his way to a ‘usual’ third place in the Spanish Grand Prix, which would have been the normal outcome based on pure race pace. McLaren remained in a league of its own in Barcelona, even after the FIA clampdown on flexi-wings, forcing Red Bull to try something different. That different approach was a three-stop strategy. A valid attempt, since strategy is the next best weapon if a team lacks pure pace. It at least pressured McLaren – as Andrea Stella admitted afterwards – and allowed Verstappen to push harder on each set of tyres.

First mistake: Red Bull’s tyre choice – the worst of three options

However, a late safety car wasn’t part of Red Bull’s script. “It’s unfortunate. That safety car at the end definitely didn’t work in our favour,” Verstappen commented. That said, Red Bull still had three options at its disposal when Bernd Maylander came out in the safety car, and with the benefit of hindsight, the team has chosen the worst one.

The first option was to stay out on the softs Verstappen already had on his RB21. That would have given him the lead and therefore the benefit of track position. Defending against both McLarens may have been nearly impossible, but it would have offered him a better chance to hold on to third place. Moreover, the softs weren’t too worn at that stage. Verstappen had pitted at the end of lap 47, while the safety car came out on lap 55.

The second option was to pit for a used set of softs. “We only had one set of used softs left, they were around six laps old. I did the laps to the grid on them,” Verstappen explained. “The peak from that tyre was already gone.” Based on that, Red Bull incorrectly assumed that the only remaining new set – a set of hard tyres – was the best way to go. “The safety car came out on lap 55, which was probably the worst possible time in terms of our strategy. Unfortunately, the only set of tyres that we had available, having gone on to that three-stop strategy, was a new set of hards,” Christian Horner explained. “And so our feeling was that a new set of hards was better than an eight-lap old, heavily degraded set of softs.”

In hindsight, it was the worst of the three options, as it proved extremely difficult to get the hard tyres into a good operating window for the restart – something no team should have been surprised by. In fact, no other driver before Verstappen had used the C1 tyre in the race, signalling how much teams wanted to avoid it. Verstappen suffered from oversteer on the restart and was “a sitting duck” against his rivals, as Horner admitted. It marked the beginning of all problems and was Red Bull’s first mistake of the race. “In hindsight, you’d have left him out”, Horner acknowledged. “He would have got passed by the two McLarens, but would he have got passed by Leclerc? It’s all subjective. You never know. You make a decision with the information you have at hand.”

But even based on the information that Red Bull had at the time, the decision to pit for hards was questionable. Admittedly, there was no perfect option left after committing to a three-stop strategy, but the team could, and perhaps should, have known how difficult it would be to get the hard tyres working in a short stint. Especially knowing that everyone else avoided the hard tyre at all costs for the entire race. That compound can only become advantageous towards the end of a longer stint — but obviously that wasn’t a factor with just six laps to go.

Second mistake: Why the FIA felt Verstappen didn’t need to give the place back

Red Bull’s second mistake was instructing Verstappen to give the position back to Russell. With hindsight, this turned out to be a wrong call — and once again, based on the information that was available, Red Bull could and perhaps should have known better.

Horner said after the race that quicker communication from race control would have helped, but that only tells one part of the story. “It would be nice, as the referee, as a race director, to either say play on or you need to give it back. I think it’s very hard for the team, subjectively, to try and make that call because you’re going on historical precedents”, the Red Bull team boss explained. “So I think it would be beneficial to the teams, in that instance, for the race director to make that call and say you either give it back or you get a penalty, rather than having to try and second guess what the stewards are going to think.”

While quicker communication could help, it’s definitely not the whole picture. All teams have access to the racing guidelines, and Red Bull simply made the wrong judgment based on those. “We looked at all the slow-mos and it was really 50-50. Is George under control of the car? Would he have made the corner? It looked like he would have made the corner. So you make the call to say, look, we need to give this place up.”

Horner mentions the word “control,” and that’s indeed the decisive factor. The FIA stewards concluded that Russell’s front axle was level with Verstappen’s mirror, which gives the attacking driver the right to space, but only if the attacking driver remains in control of both his car and the overtaking manoeuvre. It’s why the stewards concluded Verstappen didn’t need to give the place back. “While the front axle of Car 63 was ahead of the mirror of Car 1 at the apex, the driver of Car 63 momentarily lost control of the car and collided with Car 1, forcing it wide and into the escape road. Car 1 re-entered the track at Turn 3 ahead of Car 63. Given that the reason for Car 1 being forced off the track was the loss of control and the resulting contact by Car 63, Car 1 did not deliberately leave the track. We accordingly took no further action,” the stewards explained.

This was also visible from the onboard footage, especially from Russell’s car. According to the FIA, Russell was predominantly at fault after an optimistic move, and – based on onboard footage and the racing guidelines – Red Bull should’ve reached the same conclusion. It’s worth noting that Jonathan Wheatley, the team’s former sporting director, no longer works at Red Bull and is now Sauber’s team principal. He is well-known in the paddock for both knowing the rulebook by heart and being an expert in communication with race control.

Third mistake: Frustration boils over, Verstappen admits it “shouldn’t have happened”

These two mistakes led to major frustration for Verstappen, as was heard over radio. After the tyre change, Verstappen immediately asked: “What the fuck are we… What the fuck is this tyre?” His race engineer Lambiase replied: “That’s the hard tyre, Max.” When Verstappen asked why he was on hard, Lambiase responded: “That was the only option.” As said, it wasn’t entirely true as Red Bull could’ve stayed out or gone to a used set of softs. When Verstappen asked whether anyone else had used the hard tyre during the race before him, the answer was: “Negative.”

After being told to give the place back to Russell, Verstappen’s frustration increased: “No, I was ahead, mate. What the fuck? Mate, I was ahead. He just ran me off the road.” Yet Lambiase replied: “But that’s the rules. That’s the rules we have to play with. It’s a shame, but that’s the rules.”

It brought Verstappen’s frustration to a boiling point as he hit Russell in Turn 5. While Red Bull’s mistakes placed him in that position, such a move can, of course, never be condoned — as Verstappen himself has also acknowledged by now. Even with emotions running high, driving into opponents can never be a solution to any situation in motorsports, especially not in Formula 1 — which serves as an example. The penalty was an easy call for the stewards. In 2017, Sebastian Vettel received a 10-seconds stop-and-go penalty for hitting Lewis Hamilton after an alleged brake test behind the safety car in Baku. As Verstappen admitted a day later in a statement on social media, the move simply “wasn’t right” and “shouldn’t have happened”. Horner added that the Dutchman has apologised to the team during the post-race debrief.

The consequences are that this Sunday has been costly for both Verstappen and Red Bull. First, the Dutchman has lost a large number of championship points in a way that could easily have been avoided. Recent races had been all about damage limitation compared to McLaren. It worked well for him, as after eight race weekends in a car that has been slower for almost all of them, Verstappen trailed championship leader Oscar Piastri by just 25 points. In Spain, that deficit nearly doubled.

Second, Verstappen received three more penalty points on his super licence, bringing the total up to 11. A 12-point tally results in a race ban, and the next two points won’t expire until 30 June, after the Austrian Grand Prix. It means Verstappen cannot afford any more incidents over the next two race weekends if he wants to avoid a suspension. The dramatic end to the Barcelona race, marred by two team mistakes and frustrations getting the better of Verstappen, can have far-reaching consequences for the remainder of this title fight – although Verstappen says it’s not even a title fight due to the differences in car performance.

Nevertheless, last Sunday afternoon under the Spanish sun has been a costly one for both Verstappen and Red Bull in the 2025 season.