Why Max Verstappen’s “minor warning” was fair after the Hungarian GP towel incident

Max Verstappen received a minor warning after he threw a towel out of his Red Bull car during practice at the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix. Talking on The Inside Track podcast, Red Bull head of sporting regulations Stephen Knowles discussed the incident, describing it as "fair".

Verstappen left the pits during FP2 of the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend with a towel still in his cockpit, and it remained on the track surface for the remainder of the session after he threw it from his RB21 between Turns 3 and 4. 

"It was just a towel you normally wipe your face with when you come back in, so it was still in the car when I went out," the Dutchman said after the session. "Instead of it potentially flying in between my feet, which was the dangerous part, I drove off line and got rid of it in the safest way possible, so I think the stewards understand."

The stewards investigated the incident as an unsafe release, finally giving the reigning champion a warning instead of a more severe penalty. 

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

"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 report stated.

"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."

Knowles, defending his driver, said that the verdict from the stewards was a warning for the whole grid, not just the Milton Keynes team.

“If you think about what the sport and the stewards are trying to do with these penalties, first and foremost, is to act as a deterrent for anything that you should not be doing going forward. And it is fair to say that if you ever send the car from the garage with anything loose in the cockpit, it's potentially dangerous.

"And I guess it's a bit of a leap to say that, you know, the towel could have made its way down into the footwell and maybe obstructed the pedals or something, but in the extreme it could have been dangerous.

"I think it's probably fair for them to issue that lenient but still minor warning so that it's a reminder for everybody else that you do need to be careful not to do that and the teams have a responsibility to make sure that the cockpits are free of anything - any floating items - when they leave the garage.”