Onboard footage has emerged from Max Verstappen’s Red Bull car showing the Dutchman looking towards Lando Norris before flagging his starting grid position with his race engineer. The McLaren racer later received a penalty for being too far forward in his box. After pulling into his P7 starting slot after the formation lap, Verstappen took a couple of glances towards his rival on his right. After confirming his suspicions, he pressed the radio button and told race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase: “Lando is over his grid box.”
The Red Bull engineer replied: “Okay. Understood, thanks.” Shortly after the lights went out and the race got underway, Norris’ starting procedure infringement was noted and upgraded to an investigation. He then received a five-second time penalty, which was served during the first round of stops. Explaining how the error happened, Norris said: “At the beginning, I was too far back. So, I tried to creep forward and crept forward and did the opposite. So, no, first time I’ve ever done this in my life. It shouldn’t happen. But it did, and I paid the price for it.”
This was a costly mistake from Norris. The Brit finished the Grand Prix less than a second behind Mercedes driver George Russell, so without his five-second stoppage during the first round of pit stops, the 25-year-old would have completed a one-two finish for the McLaren squad.
Instead, Norris was forced to settle for third, watching on as team-mate Oscar Piastri became the first multiple-race winner of the 2025 season. The Australian racer is now only three points behind his rival at the top of the Drivers’ Championship standings.
Unfortunately for Verstappen, while his attempt to get Norris penalised was successful, that was where the joy ended for the Dutchman. He dropped to ninth on the opening lap and struggled with an ill-handling race car all day long.
The reigning world champion managed to squeeze by Pierre Gasly on the final lap to secure a P6 finish, but this will be of little consolation to Verstappen, given McLaren’s performance. The 27-year-old now sits third in the World Championship, eight points behind Norris.
“Very alarming,” Helmut Marko assessed after the chequered flag at the Sakhir International Circuit. “We know that we are not competitive, and there will be parts coming in the coming races, and hopefully they bring improvement.
“We have a lot of problems. The main problem is balance and grip. And out of this, so I guess the problems with the brakes came up. And then the normal procedure like a pitstop is not working, so one [issue] comes after the other.”
