Red Bull has blamed Max Verstappen’s fatal Italian GP pit stop on human error as a result of a technical directive issued by Formula One’s governing body, which aims to slow down pit stops for safety reasons by preventing the use of any automatic systems.
An 11-second stop at last Sunday’s race at Monza dropped championship leader Verstappen into a position where he and Mercedes’ title rival Lewis Hamilton went wheel to wheel and collide, retiring on the spot.
Verstappen was mainly held to blame and collect three place grid penalty For the next race in Russia. “As a result of the new technical directive, there was a rare human error in our pit stop, but we still need to learn something,” Red Bull boss Christian Horner said in a column on the team’s website on Friday.
“That slow stop put Max out of sync where he should have been on the track. Mercedes made the situation worse when they stumbled onto Hamilton’s car from their own stop, which meant that Both drivers were neck and neck.
.