Formula 1 Brazilian GP
Red Bull: Hamilton F1 grid penalty ‘doesn’t change anything for us’
Christian Horner says Lewis Hamilton’s grid penalty in Brazil “doesn’t change anything” for Red Bull as Max Verstappen looks to capitalise and extend his championship lead.
Luke Smith
Edited: Nov 12, 2021, 8:01 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Mercedes confirmed on Friday following the start of practice at Interlagos that Hamilton had taken his fifth engine of the season ahead of the race weekend, sparking a grid penalty.
Hamilton will drop five places on the grid on Sunday, falling back from wherever he finishes the sprint race on Saturday evening.
It offers an opportunity for Verstappen to grow his lead over Hamilton further, having won the last two races and opened up a championship lead of 19 points with four races remaining.
Red Bull also has the chance to leapfrog Mercedes in the constructors’ championship this weekend, having drawn to within a single point of the German manufacturer in Mexico last Sunday.
Red Bull F1 chief Horner said that Hamilton’s penalty “doesn’t change anything for us”, and that he fully understood why Mercedes was taking the penalty in Brazil.
“We’ve just got to focus on doing the best job that we can,” Horner said during FP1 on Sky Sports F1. “There’s some weather around today, we’ve got the sprint race and then the main race on Sunday.
“It’s entirely understandable that Mercedes would decide to strategically take that penalty here, which they’ll incur on Sunday.
“We’ll just focus on ourselves and do the best job we can.”
Read Also:
Mercedes has been battling reliability problems with its engines, forcing Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas and a number of customer teams to also take penalties in recent races.
Red Bull last took a grid penalty with Verstappen in Russia to add an extra engine to his available pool of components, which Horner expected would last until the end of the season.
“All things being normal, we expect to get to the end of the season with the combustion engines that we have,” Horner said. “The three in use from the beginning of the year, we obviously lost one in the crash at Silverstone. But with the penalty we took in Sochi, that got us back into good shape.
“So bar abnormal circumstances, we’d expect to get to the end of the year.”
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Brazilian GP: Hamilton outpaces Verstappen by 0.3s in FP1
Next article MotoGP legend Rossi says racing with Norris would be “fantastic”
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Luke Smith
1998 Belgian GP: When the Schumachers went to war
Formula 1
Formula 1
1998 Belgian GP: When the Schumachers went to war
The race that transformed perceptions of Red Bull
Formula 1
Formula 1
The race that transformed perceptions of Red Bull
Hamilton in the process of selecting Brad Pitt’s co-star for F1 movie
Formula 1
Formula 1
Hamilton in the process of selecting Brad Pitt’s co-star for F1 movie
More from
Lewis Hamilton
Oscar Piastri on his Singapore puncture: “Ironically, it probably helped”
Formula 1
Formula 1
Singapore GP
Oscar Piastri on his Singapore puncture: “Ironically, it probably helped”
Why Ferrari caved in to Lewis Hamilton’s failed Singapore F1 gamble
Formula 1
Formula 1
Singapore GP
Why Ferrari caved in to Lewis Hamilton’s failed Singapore F1 gamble
More from
Red Bull Racing
Christian Horner takes cheeky swipe at Guenther Steiner: 'He never achieved an F1 podium'
Formula 1
Formula 1
Singapore GP
2 h
Christian Horner takes cheeky swipe at Guenther Steiner: 'He never achieved an F1 podium'
Christian Horner admits that F1 rivalry with Toto Wolff became "theatre"
Formula 1
Formula 1 6 h
Christian Horner admits that F1 rivalry with Toto Wolff became "theatre"
Latest news
Did Haas make the correct decision in signing Rafael Camara for F1 2027?
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
43 min
Did Haas make the correct decision in signing Rafael Camara for F1 2027?
Frederik Vesti steps up to full-time role as Cadillac Racing details 2027 IMSA lineup
IMSA
IMSA IMSA 50 min
Frederik Vesti steps up to full-time role as Cadillac Racing details 2027 IMSA lineup
Rafael Camara to replace Esteban Ocon at Haas for F1 2027
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
58 min
Rafael Camara to replace Esteban Ocon at Haas for F1 2027
Cadillac signs Ricky Taylor, Antonio Felix da Costa in refreshed 2027 WEC line-up
WEC
WEC WEC
Barcelona
1 h
Cadillac signs Ricky Taylor, Antonio Felix da Costa in refreshed 2027 WEC line-up
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe