Christian Horner explains Red Bull decision over controversial Max Verstappen penalty

Christian Horner has explained why Red Bull decided not to make Max Verstappen hand the lead over the Oscar Piastri during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Having started on pole at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, the Dutchman was beaten to the apex of Turn 1 by the McLaren driver, who used that advantage to claim the corner and push the Red Bull wide and onto the run-off area. Verstappen emerged ahead, and was subsequently handed a five-second time penalty, mitigated down from the standard 10-second punishment, from the stewards for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage. Whilst a correct call by the letter of the law, Red Bull felt the incident was "marginal", in Horner's words, and opted not to let Piastri through, something that would have prevented the penalty being awarded. It turned out to be a race-defining moment, with Verstappen following home the Australian, who took his third victory in the opening five rounds of the year to take control of the drivers' championship fight. When reflecting on the weekend, the Red Bull team principal focused on the positives to take from the grand prix. "It's frustrating, obviously," he said on the BBC's The Inside Track podcast. "You look at if we had a given the position back... we chose not to at the time because it would have put us under pressure from the cars behind. "Plus the benefit of clean air is never to be underestimated. "But I think the positives that came out of Jeddah were; on that first stint, we were able to pull away, and on the second stint, we were 4.8 seconds behind when we left the pit lane and we finished the race 2.8 seconds behind Oscar. "So we had the pace in that race to win it outright, which has really been the first time, I think, this year, that we've had the upper hand in pace on race day to the McLarens."

No route to victory

Whilst the choice to keep Verstappen out front and in the clean air kept the 64-time grand prix winner safe from the threat of George Russell and Charles Leclerc behind, Horner does not believe his driver could have added to his tally of victories if the position had been relinquished. Therefore, it was the lesser of two evils in his eyes, despite Red Bull's former sporting director Jonathan Wheatley suggesting he would have made a different call. "No," the 51-year-old replied when asked if Verstappen could have won from behind, before going on to explain why. "Overtaking in that circuit, as you saw, is so hard, and when you run in the dirty air to get close, particularly in that awesomely quick first sector, there would have been no chance," the Briton added. "So, yeah, it was frustrating, obviously. It was a very marginal call, hence the five second penalty, not a 10 second, but it is what it is. And our focus is now very much on the next race."