Max Verstappen and Red Bull were under investigation after he threw a towel out of his Formula 1 car in bizarre scenes during Hungarian Grand Prix practice.
Lando Norris topped the timesheets in both of Friday’s practice sessions, as he looks to overtake his championship rival Oscar Piastri before F1 goes on its summer break.
Verstappen, who prior to the weekend confirmed he would be staying at Red Bull for 2026, was a long way off the pace, finishing FP2 over a second behind Norris.
But the four-time champion also found himself in trouble with the stewardsafter a bizarre incident during the second session, where he slowed down on track and started rummaging around his cockpit.
He then pulled to the side of the road and chucked away what appeared to be a towel or a rag, which ended up on the tarmac, before he got on his way again.
‘It was just a towel that you normally wipe your face with when you come back in,’ Verstappen later clarified to Sky Sports.
‘It was still in the car when I went out, so instead of it maybe flying between my feet, which is the dangerous part, I drove off the line and got rid of it in the safest way possible. I think the stewards understand that.’
Unsurprisingly, the 27-year-old and Red Bull were summoned to the stewards to explain the incident and after a brief investigation they concluded he had done the right thing and would not be penalised.
They did however issue a formal warning to the team, with an FIA statement reading: ‘The driver explained that while in the garage, the face towel had slipped from his lap to the side of the seat and the team was unaware that it remained in the cockpit.
‘When the driver realised it was there, he moved to the far right of the track and attempted to throw it as far away from the car and the track as possible.
‘The stewards determine that the towel had the potential to have become lodged in the footwell and to interfere with the driver’s ability to fully control the car and that, therefore, the car was released in an unsafe condition.
‘The stewards consider this case to be distinguishable from a case where a hard (and therefore potentially dangerous) object is left in the cockpit and to be less severe than such a case, hence a warning to the team is imposed.’
The news will come as a relief to Verstappen on a ‘bad weekend’ for the reigning champion, who added: ‘Today was very tough, just a really low grip feeling.
‘There wasn’t really a balance in the car so it’s even difficult to say what the exact problem is. Nothing really worked, so it’s something we have to investigate overnight.’
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