Red Bull was fined 50,000 euros after the US Grand Prix with Max Verstappen’s victory.
The reason for this is not a violation by the 28-year-old star pilot from the Netherlands. Rather, the Formula 1 race stewards punished a rule violation by a team member immediately before the start. Half of the sentence was suspended for the remainder of the season.
Accordingly, an employee “re-entered the area of Gate 1 near the second starting position after the formation lap had already begun and at the time when the marshals began to close the gate.” Entering is no longer permitted at this point.
The employee is said to have not responded to the marshals’ efforts to prevent him from doing so.
According to a report by the “BBC”, the Red Bull employee is said to have tried to remove adhesive tape marking the starting position of Verstappen’s rival Lando Norris. The Brit, second in the World Championship behind his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri but ahead of Verstappen, had secured second place on the grid for the race in Austin.
Citing an unnamed source, the BBC wrote that Red Bull had not done this for the first time. Regardless of the adhesive tape, the starting boxes are color-coded on the asphalt.