Christian Horner points out McLaren error which could have avoided Lando Norris penalty

Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes McLaren made a mistake by not telling Lando Norris to give position back to Max Verstappen at the F1 United States Grand Prix.

The closing stages of Sunday’s race at COTA featured a thrilling battle for the final podium place contested by championship protagonists Verstappen and Norris.

After several failed attempts, Norris finally passed Verstappen at Turn 12 with four laps to go, but both drivers ended up running off track and into the run-off area.

F1’s stewards issued a five-second penalty to Norris, who opted to keep track position until the chequered flag, rather than hand the place back to Verstappen and have another go at overtaking the Dutchman.

With Norris only able to pull 4.1 seconds clear of Verstappen, he dropped to fourth behind his main title rival, who extended his championship advantage to 57 points over the McLaren driver.

“What I perhaps didn’t understand was it was clear there was going to be a penalty, or it looked pretty clear there was going to be a penalty,” Red Bull team principal Horner said.

“With the car advantage and tyre advantage that McLaren had at that point of the race, it looked like he went to give the place back up at Turn 1.

“But there was some confusion there. If he’d have given the place back immediately, he would have probably had enough pace to make the pass [again].”

Norris insisted that he did the right thing by not immediately giving the position back to Verstappen.

“Considering Max went off the track – normally if you defend your position and you go off the track, you have to give the position up. In that case I was ahead, I kept my position because he needed to give it back, and that’s the way it is,” Norris argued.

“I think I did the correct thing, but I don’t make the rules. Max drove well, it was a fun race between us, a good battle. He defended well, he did everything he had to do.”

McLaren were left outraged by the F1 stewards’ “inappropriate” interference, but Horner felt the incident was clear cut.

“They discuss these issues in particular corners in the briefings with the various stewards and driver stewards and race director,” he said.

“So look, the pass was made off-track. We’ve been on the receiving end of that. In fact, here, I think, against Kimi [Raikkonen] in 2018 [sic, 2017].

“So for us, it was crystal clear that the pass had been made off the track. So he should have given the place back. He chose not to. So therefore there was a penalty.

“So for us, it was very much a black-and-white scenario.”