Christian Horner has revealed that Red Bull will not try and bail out Max Verstappen by appealing his two 10-second time penalties at the Mexican Grand Prix.
Horner defended the widely-criticised moves his star driver tried during an early battle with Lando Norris at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, and even brought graphs and telemetry sheets to the post-race press conference in order to vindicate Verstappen.
But Horner feels it would not be worth Red Bull's time to use their right of review. The team principal has instead called on the FIA to provide more clarity on the rules of overtaking after Verstappen's feisty approach saw him tumble down to an eventual P6 finish in Mexico.
"We won't activate a right of review on this," Horner conceded. "I think the most important thing is to address what is the way to go racing, going forward. I'm not sure that [certain aspects] are clear to the drivers."
In a separate battle with Verstappen at Circuit of the Americas last weekend, Norris felt aggrieved at being handed a five-second time penalty for gaining an advantage by going off track when he was left no racing room by the Dutchman.
McLaren activated their right of review on that occasion but the FIA decided not to take the matter further. Norris bounced back from that disappointment by finishing second in Mexico and closing the gap to 47 points at the top of the Drivers' Championship.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown was pleased to see Verstappen heavily penalised for a pair of audacious moves which were branded 'dangerous' by Norris and 'outrageous' by Sky Sports commentator Martin Brundle.
"[The penalties were] probably not enough," said Brown. "I mean, it's getting a bit ridiculous. I applaud the FIA stewards. Enough is enough. Let's just have some good clean racing moving forward. I think the stewards are on it, I think that's clear by the penalties that were given. The stewards did a good job this weekend."
With tension rising ahead of the final four Grands Prix of the season, Verstappen deflected attention away from his punishment and towards Red Bull's pace issues.
"The problem is, when you're slower, you're being put into those kinds of positions," he told Sky Sports. "I'm not going to give up easily. At the end of the day, it's also not about agreeing or disagreeing with the penalties - the only thing is, 20 seconds is quite a lot - but the biggest problem of today and also what I worry about is the race pace. It was really not good and is something we need to analyse."
