A strip of tape has become the latest flashpoint between Red Bull and the rest of the grid.
The FIA fined Red Bull €50,000 after the United States Grand Prix for a procedural breach — re-entering the gate well area after the formation lap had started — and paddock chatter quickly zeroed in on an alleged sideshow: a Red Bull staffer reportedly tried to peel up McLaren’s reference tape used by Lando Norris to position his car in the grid box.
It didn’t hinder Norris, who still parked the McLaren exactly where it needed to be. But the optics? Not great. And Carlos Sainz isn’t letting it slide.
Speaking to media in Mexico City, Sainz questioned the values behind any attempt to remove another team’s visual guide — a simple marker teams sometimes use to help drivers line up within the yellow lines. It’s mundane pitlane stuff, but it matters when the penalty for getting it wrong can be five seconds and a wrecked race.
Some cars have in-cockpit references that make life easy. Others lean on a strip of tape on the wall or the sideboard — nothing fancy, just a pointer in a sport obsessed with millimeters. Sainz made the point that if a driver needs that help, trying to take it away crosses a line.
He stopped short of naming names or calling for specific sanctions, but he was crystal clear on the principle: that’s not how he thinks the sport should be played. “I know what I would do if I were team principal,” he said, leaving the rest to the imagination.
Red Bull’s actual punishment from the stewards was for the gate well infringement, not the tape incident — the latter wasn’t part of the official decision. But the allegation lit up the driver briefing cycle, because it taps into a broader frustration about how rules and “guidelines” are being applied this season.
Sainz suggested the conversation should move to Qatar, where the drivers expect to talk through how the sport distinguishes between hard-and-fast regulations and the softer guidance that stewards sometimes lean on. That gray area has been a sore point across a range of incidents, and this one — part gamesmanship, part etiquette — fits the mood.
On the face of it, the tape saga sounds petty. But there’s a reason teams obsess over grid placement. Nail it, and you avoid a penalty and get the best launch. Miss it, and you risk a time sanction or worse. In a season where margins are slim and pressure points are everywhere, a small aid becomes a competitive asset, and that invites mischief.
What’s interesting is the split-screen of modern F1: teams pushing right up to the line on sporting ethics while operating inside a rulebook that sometimes can’t keep up with the creativity. The stewards’ €50,000 fine for the gate well breach shows the FIA’s appetite to clamp down on procedural overreach. Whether anything else comes of the tape allegation is another matter entirely.
For McLaren and Norris, the episode changes nothing tangible, except perhaps confirming their status as a team others are willing to unsettle. For Red Bull, it’s another PR bruise in a season where every little skirmish gets amplified. And for the drivers, Sainz’s stance will resonate: there’s a difference between being sharp and being shabby.
Expect this to bubble up again. Qatar’s debrief on guidelines versus rules has been a long time coming, and the grid-tape drama is a neat case study. Is it written down? Is it enforceable? Should it be? The paddock rarely agrees on much, but it tends to agree on one thing: if you have to win by ripping up tape, maybe you’ve missed the point.
