Horner on possible grid penalty for Verstappen: "You are never safe"

F1 News

Christian Horner talks about possible grid penalty for Max Verstappen
26 October at 07:30

For Max Verstappen, the first day of the Grand Prix weekend in Mexico City ended in disappointment. There were engine problems with his RB20, forcing him to retire early in FP2. Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner realises that a grid penalty is a possibility sometime this Formula One season.

Verstappen was disappointed with what he said was a "useless day". The Dutchman was unable to cover many kilometres at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez due to the technical problems he faced. The subject of a possible grid penalty was soon mentioned again, but Verstappen said he did not worry about that this weekend.

Horner on possible grid penalty Verstappen

Prior to the second free practice session, Horner also addressed the possibility of a grid penalty. "I don't think you're ever safe, as we had just seen in the last session [FP1], but hopefully, that's just a small issue. I think it's something, probably more of a question for our engine partner [Honda] as to how comfortable they feel getting to the end of the year. But you're always always on the limit," Horner explained.

Overall, the Red Bull team boss thinks his team has made a good move since the US GP. "To get the pole for the sprint, to win the sprint race, arguably we were certainly in contention for the pole for the Grand Prix, qualified ultimately on the front row. The bit that we under-delivered on, with the setup changes, after the sprint race we perhaps overcompensated. We just had too much understeer in the car," Horner admitted.

"So a sprint race win, fighting third, was a very positive weekend. And I think that the engineers and design team and manufacturing supply chain, they've been working tremendously hard back in the UK, and it's good to see performance getting through to the car," Horner concluded.

This article has been created in collaboration with Matt Gretton