Former FIA steward predicts more Red Bull vs McLaren ‘games’ after €50,000 ‘tapegate’ fine
Can Max Verstappen catch Lando Norris in the F1 2025 title race?
Johnny Herbert, the former FIA steward, is convinced that there will be more “games” between Red Bull and McLaren in the closing weeks of the F1 2025 season.
It comes after last month’s ‘tapegate’ drama between the two rival teams at last month’s United States Grand Prix.
Former FIA steward Johnny Herbert expects more tapegate-style ‘games’ between Red Bull and McLaren
Red Bull was handed a ‘significant’ fine of €50,000 – half of which was suspended – in Austin, Texas, last month after a procedural breach ahead of the race start.
It soon transpired that the punishment related to an incident after the formation lap had started at the Circuit of the Americas, with a Red Bull team member attempting to interfere with a strip of tape left on the pitwall by McLaren to assist Lando Norris.
McLaren has long employed the practice of applying a piece of tape on the pit wall as a visual marker for Norris as he lines up in his grid box.
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The FIA stewards’ report revealed that an unnamed Red Bull team member re-entered the gate well area on the pit wall after the formation lap had commenced and as pit marshals were in the process of closing the gate, with the individual not reacting to attempts by marshals to stop him.
The fine handed to Red Bull was for that specific breach rather than the incident with the tape, which is not covered by the regulations and therefore legal.
Herbert left his role as an FIA steward at the start of this year after his media commitments were found to be incompatible with the role of an official working with F1’s governing body.
And the three-time F1 race winner has predicted that incidents similar to ‘tapegate’ will occur across the final four races as the title battle between McLaren and Red Bull intensifies.
He told the Stay on Track podcast: “[Look at] Austin and that little kerfuffle with the Red Bull mechanic or whatever he was going back onto the track itself.
“Then there was talk about the tape that Lando had put on the wall and he was going to go there and peel it off.
“There’s going to be games like that as well [between now and the end of the season].
“Red Bull are very much on the high side of playing those games.”
More on Red Bull and McLaren from PlanetF1.com
Norris enters this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix nursing a one-point lead over McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, with Max Verstappen, the Red Bull driver and reigning four-time world champion, 36 points behind.
Responding to ‘tapegate’ at the last race in Mexico, Norris revealed that he was amused by Red Bull’s heavy fine, claiming that the tape on the pit wall wasn’t necessary for him in Austin.
He told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets: “Good job by them. They can [remove the tape].
“I didn’t mind; I didn’t use the tape, so it was extra amusing because I didn’t need it. We just put it there in case.
“[That] made it extra funny because they got a penalty for it and I didn’t even need it.
“They also tried to remove it and failed, because we made [it] special so they couldn’t take it off even.
“I think they tried to remove it already in Monza and a couple other places, so that’s why we made it like the F1 passes [for parking] that you can never get out of the window, ever.
“It was amusing to try and see them taking it off and it not going to plan.
“I’ll continue to use it. Sometimes I never use it at all because it’s almost too far away. Sometimes I do.
“But 95 per cent of the races now I use the line on the grid, so I think that’s why it was even better.”
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock
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