Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has confessed that the off-track battles ‘got out of hand’ at the United States Grand Prix after a member of his team attempted to remove Lando Norris’ grid marker tape from the pit wall ahead of Sunday’s race.
The Milton Keynes squad were fined £43,000 (€50,000) for the incident, half of which was suspended for the rest of the season, after the FIA judged that a Red Bull employee had failed to comply with instructions from a pit marshal during the formation lap of the United States GP.
Addressing the incident in an interview with The Athletic, Mekies said: “I think it’s fair to say there have been quite a few silly games played by both teams in the last little while. On one side, you can probably say that [these tactics are] part of F1 history, known or less well known.
“But it’s equally fair to say that we acknowledge that it got out of hand, and we’ll make sure that it doesn’t go too far next time.” Asked if the tape removal attempts would continue, Mekies replied: “I’m sure we’ll keep it under control.”
According to Norris, Red Bull’s mind games were unnecessary, as he allegedly didn’t use the marking tape as a reference for pulling into his grid box last weekend. “Good job by them because they can,” he told the media in Mexico City.
“But, it didn’t matter. I didn’t use the tape. So it was extra amusing because I didn’t need it. We just put it there in case, so it made it extra funny because they got a penalty for it, and I didn’t even need it.
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“They also tried to remove it and failed because we made it special, so they couldn’t take it off either. So it was just amusing. Little side quests, I guess, for the teams to entertain themselves. But we were the ones laughing about it.”
Given the bloated size of the current F1 machinery, drivers sometimes struggle to see the borders of their grid boxes when pulling in on the formation lap. This led to a five-second time penalty for Norris in Bahrain earlier this year, as he started too far forward on Sunday.
“I use it in case I was to the right or something,” Norris elaborated, explaining the use of the tape. “It’s just a backup. I’ve used it for a little while, and they tried to remove it already, and they tried to remove it in Monza and a couple of other places. I’m using it to try and see them take it off! Sometimes I will never use it at all because it’s almost too far away. Sometimes I do.”
