Red Bull will stop trying to remove the tape that McLaren puts on the wall for Lando Norris on the grid after the two Formula 1 teams agreed to end a mischievous back-and-forth.
Red Bull got a €50k fine, half of which was suspended, after a team member ignored instructions from pit marshals and broke the rules around vacating the grid for the formation lap before the start of the United States Grand Prix.
As first revealed by The Race, the team member had attempted to go back through the gap in the pitlane to interfere with tape McLaren put on the pitwall next to Norris’s grid position.
The attempted tape removal has happened on multiple occasions and became an established little battleground on the grid between the two teams’ mechanics.
It is understood that some of the tactics McLaren employed to make it harder for Red Bull to remove the tape included cutting it into long vertical strips so it could not be removed in one go and leaving a mechanic on the grid in front of the tape until very late - with Red Bull doing the same to try to remove it anyway.
At one stage McLaren also put two layers of tape on the wall, in case the top one did get quickly removed, with the second layer reading ‘better luck next time’.
McLaren and Norris use the tape as a guide for where he should pull into his grid box to be as far forward as possible without going over – although it is not Norris’s primary reference, more used as a back-up in case he cannot see the yellow line on the grid that helps identify where the grid box is.
And Norris said it was “extra amusing” that Red Bull got in trouble over it because he did not actually use the tape last weekend.
“We just put it there in case,” he said. “So it made it extra funny because they got a penalty for it and I didn't even need it.
“They also tried to remove it and failed because we made it special so they couldn't even take it off.
“So it was just amusing little side quests, I guess, for other teams to entertain themselves.
“We were always laughing about it.”
Interference with the tape is not against any F1 rules even though it was criticised by some as unsporting.
The Race understands that McLaren and Red Bull team bosses Andrea Stella and Laurent Mekies have discussed the matter this week.
It is more widely seen as an example of the kind of shenanigans that can unfold between rivals, although Stella and Mekies are both understood to be keen that a line is drawn under it before it escalates or becomes a distraction.
Neither wants the McLaren-Red Bull rivalry to become problematic, especially as the championship fight heats up in the final races.
Plus the fact is that in the US it did lead to a breach of the rules and, in a worst case scenario, that could have led to the race start being delayed.
McLaren will likely continue to affix the tape as a back-up for Norris even though he says he does not need it most of the time.
“I used it for a little while and they tried to remove it already in I think Monzas and a couple other places,” he said.
“So that's why we kind of made it like the F1 [car park] passes that you can never get out of the window ever? Like that.
“It was amusing to kind of try to see them taking it off and it not going to plan.
“I'll continue to use it. Sometimes I'd never use it at all because it's almost too far away, sometimes I do.”
