Red Bull receives a warning after Verstappen throws towel from cockpit | Racer

Red Bull received a warning from the stewards for releasing his car in an unsafe state after Max Verstappen had to throw a towel from his cockpit while he was on the FP2 in the Hungarian Grand Prix during FP2.

Verstappen was depicted to the inside of the track in the first sector and threw the towel to the edge of the grass, making it on the circuit for part of the second session. The Dutchman explained that he chose not to leave the towel in the cockpit in case it became entangled in the pedals, and that the stewards understood his reasoning to throw it away.

“It’s just a towel with which you normally wipe your face when you come back, so it was still in the car when it went out,” said Verstappen. “So instead possible fly between my feet, which is the dangerous part, I drove offline and I am finished in the safest way. I think the stewards understand that.”

However, the stewards gave Red Bull a warning for the fact that the car left the garage with the towel still in the cockpit in the first place.

“Shortly after Auto 1 was released from his garage, it was observed that the driver of Auto 1 had thrown a towel out of the cockpit,” was the decision of the stewards. “The driver explained that while in the garage the face towel had slipped from his shot to the side of the chair and the team did not know it remained in the cockpit. When the driver realized, he moved to the right of the track and tried to throw it as far away from the car and the track.

“The stewards determine that the towel had the potential to have been submitted in the footwell and to disturb itself with the power of the driver to fully regulate the car and that the car has therefore been released in an unsafe state. The stewards consider this case a warning from the team that is a warning.

The incident was part of a difficult FP2 for Verstappen, because he ended a low 14th on the timing screens, over a second drift from Lando Norris’ leading time and 0.3s slower than teammate Yuki Tsunoda.

“Yes, today was very difficult. Just very little grip feeling. Not really a balance in the car,” he said. “It is hard to say what the exact problem is – nothing really worked. So this is something that we have to investigate at night, because of course it has not been our weekend so far.

“I am sure we can do better, but today was pretty bad. So we first have to understand where it is and what makes us have such a big problem with the car. I mean, McLaren really looks at it – they are flying. But of course I want to be a bit closer to P3.”