Horner confronted stewards over 'an appalling decision'

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner confronted the race stewards after what he described as "an appalling decision" to penalize Max Verstappen in the United States Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton moved to the verge of securing the drivers' championship with victory at Circuit of The Americas, but the main talking point after the race was Verstappen's final-lap pass on Kimi Raikkonen. With Verstappen cutting part of the inside of Turn 17 to make the move and being handed a five-second time penalty as a result, Horner says it is unfair his driver was singled out when others were exceeding track limits.

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"Max has driven an amazing drive," Horner said when being shown the incident again by Channel 4 television. "He's gone for the gap here. Kimi's closed it. That looks nothing worse to me than we've seen several times this grand prix by other drivers. I've just gone and had a fairly frank discussion with the stewards and expressed my dissatisfaction with their decision-making. I think it's an appalling decision.

"It's no coincidence the same steward is as Mexico last year. What was agreed after Mexico was that complete palaver with the podium was that the drivers would be at least investigated. Max hasn't even been given the opportunity to state his case. I could pick out 20 other incidents from that grand prix where the same thing has gone unpunished. Where's the consistency?"

Later, Horner said he feared the incident would not help F1's profile in the U.S., while adding the best way to prevent drivers exceeding track limits is to make sure they are punished when they leave the track, having seen Valtteri Bottas run wide defending from Daniel Ricciardo earlier in the race.

"If you don't want cars to go there, put a bigger curb or gravel or something else there. What is annoying is the lack of consistency. Where do you draw the line? For the fans and casual viewers, it needs to clear. How can you say what Valtteri did on one hand is OK but what Max did isn't?

"In any other sport, if you are out you are out. You can't have, 'It's all right to be out there but not OK to be out here.' Either get rid of it completely and just let them race. Or if you don't want the cars to go there, put in a gravel trap or bigger curbs or a deterrent for drivers not to go there."