Red Bull driver Max Verstappen has been hit with a €25,000 fine for failing to attend the mandatory driver interview, in the media pen at Baku, after he retired from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The teenage Dutchman was fuming after his fourth retirement due to technical issues while his teammate Daniel Ricciardo survived the mayhem to post the team’s first win.
A fact hardly consoled Verstappen who had the better of his Aussie teammate all weekend and would no doubt have felt that bar “a sudden failure in the engine” he would have been standing on the top step of the podium.
Red Bull tend to keep Verstappen away from the media when he is fuming because the youngster has a tendency to shoot from the hip in the heat of the moment.
However, the FIA stewards did not take kindly to his neglect of his post-race duties and deemed that he had contravened Article 19.4 of the Sporting Regulations which stipulates that drivers who fail to finish a race must face the press in the designated media pen.
Verstappen explained, “I just didn’t feel like to at that moment. I stayed for another half an hour at the circuit and discussed with my engineers what I thought of the race regarding the car and the balance. After that I left.”
He also did not stick around for the customary team victory photo-op celebrating Ricciardo’s triumph in Baku.