Former McLaren Mechanic Saw Verstappen and Red Bull Make the Right Decision

Former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley fully understands the strategy of Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The Dutchman received a five-second time penalty after an incident with Oscar Piastri on the track, where he did not give back the position and ultimately had to serve a time penalty. According to Priestley, Red Bull handled this in the right way.

"Now if he'd given the place back, I suspect he would have still finished that race in second place. So he needed to be in front. Now the option that the team then took was, well, and of course, by the way, all of this was happening whilst a safety car played out for that turn one incident with Tsunoda and Gasly."

"So by the time the stewards had made a call on this, it was actually too difficult for them to instigate giving the place back, because the field had all bunched up again, it would've been very difficult for them to just give one spot back, and it was literally laps later. The only real available option to them was to give a time penalty, which is what they did."

And thus, Red Bull and Verstappen had no other option but push. "And Red Bull then chose to use the clear air they had, try and build a big enough gap to offset the penalty. And I also think that's a fair strategy to play given the scenario," Priestley explained in a video on his YouTube channel.

'Red Bull and Verstappen did nothing wrong'

"So I'm not going to say that Red Bull or Max did anything wrong. Of course, you can argue that they can't both be right, but from their own perspective, they might both have had a point. In the end, he failed to create a big enough gap to Piastri, and so the time penalty cost him the position again — meaning he ultimately finished in second place again. Perhaps it didn't even matter so much for the final outcome, and the right person won the Grand Prix," the former McLaren mechanic concluded.

Formula E driver Sam Bird also commented on the incident at the first corner of the circuit. He saw that Verstappen wanted to do everything to stay ahead of Piastri after the first corners.

. So I'm not going to say that I think Red Bull or Max really did too 0:58 much wrong either. Of course you could argue they both can't be right, but I would say probably in their two different perspectives, they perhaps were. Obviously in the end he wasn't able to build a big enough gap over Piastri and the penalty did cost him that place again so he ended up back in second place, so maybe it didn't make too much difference to the eventual outcome and maybe the right person so maybe it didn't make too much difference to the eventual outcome and maybe the right person won the Grand Prix, which I think you could say is also a fair assumption.