Red Bull formally rules out right of review of Verstappen’s Saudi F1 penalty

Red Bull has formally ruled out launching a right-of-review petition against Max Verstappen’s decisive five-second time penalty in Formula 1’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Polesitter Verstappen was penalised for leaving the track and gaining an advantage at the start of the race, going off after a duel with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. Verstappen and Red Bull decided not to hand the position back to Piastri because they felt they were forced off the circuit and were ahead at the apex, but the FIA race stewards took a different view and handed the Dutchman a five-second penalty which he served at his only pitstop.

Verstappen and the team were furious over the verdict, and during his post-race media scrum team boss Christian Horner even brought printed out onboard images from Verstappen’s car attempting to show his driver was ahead.

Horner said the team would provide additional footage to the stewards that wasn’t available to them at the time of the decision, but he already acknowledged launching a right of review appeal would be unlikely to succeed. The team has now confirmed to Motorsport.com that it won’t take any further action.

“Obviously, we spoke to the stewards after the race. They think it was a slam dunk. The problem is, if we’re to protest it, then they’re going to most likely hold their line,” Horner said on Sunday night. “We’ll ask them to have a look at the onboard footage that wasn’t available at the time. We’ll put this in front of them first, but I think it’s highly unlikely.”

F1 teams have until 96 hours after the race to launch such a petition, which McLaren last did after the 2024 United Status Grand Prix in which Lando Norris was penalised for a similar offence in his fraught battle with Verstappen. McLaren’s right-of-review request was denied.

In their verdict the stewards determined that “car 81 had its front axle at least alongside the mirror of car 1 prior to and at the apex of corner 1 when trying to overtake car 1 on the inside. In fact, car 81 was alongside car 1 at the apex. Based on the Driver’s Standards Guidelines, it was therefore Car 81’s corner and he was entitled to be given room.

“Car 1 then left the track and gained a lasting advantage that was not given back. He stayed in front of car 81 and sought to build on the advantage. Ordinarily, the baseline penalty for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage is 10 seconds. However, given that this was lap one and turn one incident, we considered that to be a mitigating circumstance and imposed a five-second time penalty instead.”