Mexico City (AFP) – Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies said on Friday his team will cut out the ‘silly games’ that led to them being fined 50,000 Euros for tampering with McLaren’s grid tape in Austin last weekend. Mekies, who took over at Red Bull following the dismissal of Christian Horner in July, said his team had gone too far interfering with the tape used to indicate Lando Norris’s position on the grid. A Red Bull team member entered the grid area after the start of the formation lap at last Sunday’s United States Grand Prix and tried to tear the tape off the pit wall.
“I think there has been a bit of silly games being played for a few races between the teams and it probably got out of hand,” Mekies told Sky Sports F1. “Moving forward it will be more in control.”
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Norris, who finished the race second behind four-time champion Max Verstappen, said he thought it was ‘amusing’. “Good job by them because they can, but it didn’t matter,” he said. “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.”
Gamesmanship to gain an advantage by any means has been common in Formula One for many years, but is rarely uncovered and punished.
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