Red Bull "unlikely" to protest Verstappen's Saudi F1 penalty, says Horner

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has said the team is unlikely to protest the penalty decision that cost Max Verstappen his victory at the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The reigning, four-time world champion started on pole, but finished runner-up to McLaren’s Oscar Piastri after receiving a five-second penalty for a lap one incident.

Piastri attacked down the inside of Turn 1 and Verstappen subsequently went off at the next part of the chicane to safeguard his lead.

Verstappen and Red Bull opted against handing the position to Piastri because they felt the Australian forced him off - but stewards deemed otherwise and the world champion served his penalty in the pitlane, subsequently dropping behind his fellow front row starter. 

It effectively decided the grand prix, leaving Verstappen and the team furious. Horner revealed it was unlikely that Red Bull would request a right of review, though the squad may still present the stewards with potentially new evidence.

"Obviously, we spoke to the stewards after the race,” Horner said. “They think it was a slam dunk. So the problem is, if we're to protest it, then they're going to most likely hold their line.

"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."

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Kym Illman - Getty Images

Horner said that while producing screenshots of Verstappen's onboard camera to demonstrate his driver was ahead at the Turn 1 apex.

"I thought it was very harsh," he added. "We didn't concede the position because we didn't believe that he'd done anything wrong.

"You can quite clearly see at the apex of the corner that Max is clearly ahead. The rules of engagement were discussed previously, and it was a very harsh decision.

"If we'd have given it up, the problem is you then obviously run in the dirty air as well and you are then at risk with George [Russell], so the best thing to do was at that point we got the penalty, get your head down, keep going.

"We were in good shape. We had to serve the five-second penalty, and thereafter, on the same basic stint as Oscar he finished 2.6 seconds behind, so without that five-second penalty today it would have been a win.

"But there's always going to be a difference of opinion over 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 stewards handed out a five-second penalty instead of the usual 10-second suggested that they were also in two minds about the incident at the time.

"Yeah, I think they were," he said. "When you look at that [points to screenshot], I can't see how they got to that conclusion.

"Max can't just disappear at this point in time, so perhaps these rules need a re-look at. I don't know what happened to let them race on the first lap. That just seemed to have been abandoned."