Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner Wants Those ‘Harsh Penalties’ To Go From F1

Red Bull are currently holding on well on the Constructor Standings. They are where they usually are in any F1 season, regardless of it being at the very start, toward the midst of a contest or toward the fag end. It can be said that Red Bull are a perfect spot-filler for the third position in the top three teams of Formula 1.

Currently, Max Verstappen, easily the main man at Red Bull is holding the fort and is only 1 shy of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, the German being third on the driver standings. But that said, if there’s one concern that is facing Red Bull as possibly other teams as well in the contest then it concerns the point of harsh penalties.

What Christian Horner had to say about F1’s system of imposing harsh penalties on its drivers can actually become a case for some contention. Does the sport actually levy a difficult situation out there for the drivers?

And above all, what did the Red Bull team principal have to say that’s generating a lot of talks?

“Everyone agreed in a meeting we had with Ross Brawn and all of the teams that penalties on Friday that affect the rest of the whole weekend need a bit of a revisit because I think maybe it was too harsh for the crime that was committed,” said Horner.

“If he’d been 50kg underweight the penalty would have been the same. Unfortunately, he wasn’t.”

“Obviously he’s the one seeing the light and there’s also a reminder, but we were focused on doing a double pitstop,” he said.

“He’d been told to push to practice the pitlane entry, which is a bit different [in Baku], and he had a snap of oversteer on the way in.

“He’s missed the lights and the team is focused on the first pitstop as a double pitstop for Max [Verstappen], so it was just one of those things.”

In the light of the above, Christian Horner was putting forth a point for his young driver, Pierre Gasly, the Frenchman driving in only his debut season for the Milton Keynes-based side.

But as seen at Baku, the home to the Azerbaijan GP, it wasn’t any easy for Gasly, who’s already set one fastest lap this season, to make the most of his 53-lap challenge. This was all thanks to the stricter imposition of the penalty on him. That said, can F1 put a different wheel in motion out there when it comes to the qualifying runs?