Red Bull hoped to recover the podium of the Miami Grand Prix on Green Carpet by penalizing George Russell for not having slowed enough under yellow flag. The Milton Keynes team had thus made a complaint against the Mercedes F1 driver.
Stephen Knowles and Gianpiero Lambiase went to see the commissioners for the hearing about this complaint, while Mercedes sent Ron Meadows and George Russell. Red Bull started from the principle that Russell had dropped the accelerator but had not slowed down enough, not respecting article 26.1 a) of the sports regulations.
For his part, Mercedes confirmed that Russell had slowed down, and the pilot explained that he saw the yellow flag and Gabriel Bortoleto’s car stopped on the track. The team assured that the slowdown was more important than what Max Verstappen had seen from his car, since he was the first to complain about it.
The FIA confirmed this slowdown thanks to telemetry, since Russell reduced the power by 25 %, which reduced the torque by 30 %. Since he has clearly reduced his speed, Russell is thus considered to have respected article 26.1 a).
The commissioners therefore confirmed to have “rejected” Red Bull’s complaint, tried “unfounded”. As it is customary in such a case, Red Bull must pay complaint costs.
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