Red Bull DEMOTED after FIA hit F1 champions with multiple penalties

McLaren already toppled the reigning constructors’ champions off of the top spot following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix earlier this season, with the papaya outfit now set for their first championship as a team since 1998.McLaren’s reliable driver pairing of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had been chipping away at Red Bull’s constructors’ lead, finally managing to steal it off them following Piastri’s Baku victory.Following what appeared to have been one of Red Bull’s worst weekends as a time in the modern history of the sport, star driver Max Verstappen is also at risk of losing his fourth consecutive drivers’ championship title, his Mexican GP weekend plagued with FIA drama and a 20-second penalty.

Norris now sits in second just 47 points behind the Dutchman with Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc still in contention down in third.It was the performance of Leclerc and his soon-to-be ex-team-mate Carlos Sainz that bolstered the Scuderia’s constructors’ title chances in Mexico City, Sainz’s victory and Leclerc’s P3 finish meaning Red Bull have now had second place in the team standings pulled from under them as well.

This demotion can be mostly attributed to the run-ins that Christian Horner’s outfit experienced last weekend with the FIA, after Verstappen and his underperforming team-mate Sergio Perez were both handed penalties during the race.Verstappen still managed to finish P6 but the massive penalty surely denied him the chance to take home more points in what has become a rather single-handed ‘team’ effort with Perez consistently out of the points, his future in the sport uncertain.