Max Verstappen under threat of yet another penalty as investigation launched following F1 Brazil sprint

Red Bull's Max Verstappen is being investigated for a potential Virtual Safety Car infringement.

Verstappen, 27, has been summoned by the stewards after an incident at the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo.

The current F1 champion started the day in fourth position but overtook Charles Leclerc before setting his sights on passing McLaren's Oscar Piastri.

Although he tried to overtake the Australian, he came agonisingly close on the final lap, where a virtual safety car (VSC) ended.

Verstappen came very close to the McLaren driver and as a result now faces an investigation for a potential virtual safety car infringement.

The Dutch driver was almost parallel to the Australian as the VSC ended, which has raised question marks over whether he was travelling too fast under neutralised conditions.

Verstappen finished third in the Sao Paulo sprint, with McLaren's Lando Norris shaving two points off of his rival's championship lead as the Brit finished first ahead of his teammate Piastri.

Red Bull chief Christian Horner, spoke to Sky Sports: "It looks ok [Verstappen's] restart, but let's see," he said.

"He [Verstappen] was just conscious that there was no gap, Oscar wasn't dropping back from Lando," he added when discussing what was said during Verstappen's radio message.

"I think most encouraging thing was the race pace was good, that was encouraging. There's some things we're starting to understand."

Max Verstappen is once again the centre of controversy (Credit:Getty)

Verstappen then gave his thoughts on his performance.

“It was quite a tricky race but I think the pace was very good because we could always follow in the DRS," he explained.

"I’m quite pleased with that, it took a little bit too long with Charles but when everyone is in a DRS train it’s very hard to attack so I had to wait for some mistakes, luckily they came and I could use that to my advantage.

“It was promising, it was good, this is race pace, tomorrow it might rain as well so there’s a lot of unknowns but today was good.”

Former Renault driver, Jolyon Palmer, was left baffled by McLaren's strategy which almost let Verstappen pass their drivers in Brazil.

"[McLaren] left themselves so open by doing [that strategy], I mean, they had about 30 seconds to play with before it was going to get really messy for McLaren, I'm not understanding the logic of what they did," he told BBC Radio 5 Live [via BBC Sport]