FIA confirm Red Bull punishment after Max Verstappen incident triggers investigation
Max Verstappen has had a few skirmishes with the FIA over the course of his F1 career
Red Bull has received a warning from the FIA after Max Verstappen threw a towel from his cockpit during FP2 at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Verstappen was spotted throwing a towel from the cockpit of his RB21 at Turn 3 while moving at slow speed during Friday’s second free practice session in Budapest.
Red Bull warned after Max Verstappen throws out the towel
Verstappen and a Red Bull team representative were required to visit the stewards at 1820 local time in Hungary over an alleged breach of Article 34.14 c) of F1’s sporting regulations, concerning cars being released in an unsafe condition.
The FIA has confirmed that Red Bull has been given a warning for the incident.
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The steward’s verdict read: “The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 1 (Max Verstappen), team representative and reviewed video and in-car video evidence.
“Shortly after Car 1 was released from its garage, the driver of Car 1 was observed to have thrown a towel out of the cockpit.
“The driver explained that while in the garage, the face towel had slipped from his lap to the side of the seat and the team was unaware that it remained in the cockpit.
“When the driver realised it was there, he moved to the far right of the track and attempted to throw it as far away from the car and the track as possible.
“The Stewards determine that the towel had the potential to have become lodged in the footwell and to interfere with the driver’s ability to fully control the car and that therefore the car was released in an unsafe condition.
“The stewards consider this case to be distinguishable from a case where a hard (and therefore potentially dangerous) object is left in the cockpit and to be less severe than such a case.
“Hence a warning to the team is imposed.”
Verstappen endured a frustrating opening day of running in Hungary with the reigning four-time World Champion classified ninth, 0.888 seconds off the pace of Lando Norris’s McLaren, in FP1.
He slipped to 14th in FP2 as Verstappen’s deficit to Norris, once again the pacesetter, ballooned to 1.167s.
Verstappen was unable to contain his frustration with the lack of grip from the RB21 over team radio as the session developed.
Asked at one stage to pinpoint the car’s main balance limitation, Verstappen told his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase: “It’s front and rear, mate. It’s just like driving on ice.”
He later added: “I don’t know what’s going on. It’s just undriveable. I can’t get any balance.”
More on Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing from PlanetF1.com
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com on Thursday in Hungary, Verstappen ended weeks of speculation surrounding his future by confirming that he will remain a Red Bull driver for the F1 2026 season.
It came after PlanetF1.com reported on Wednesday that George Russell is nearing a new multi-year contract with Mercedes.
Asked if he could confirm that he will remain a Red Bull driver for F1 2026, Verstappen said: “Yeah.
“It’s quite interesting to follow all that, the amount of nice stories certainly that came out of it.
“But for me, I’ve never really said anything about it because I was just focused on talking to the team about how we can improve our performance, future ideas for next year as well, and that’s why I have nothing really to add ever.
“But I think it’s time to basically stop all the rumours and, for me, it’s always been quite clear that I was staying anyway.
“I think that was also the general feeling in the team anyway, because we were always in discussions about what we could do with the car.
“I think when you’re not interested in staying then you also stop talking about these kind of things – and I never did.”
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