Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Formula 1, George Russell
Marcus Chan
Topics: Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Formula 1, George Russell
Newly-crowned Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen has been given an additional punishment after his 'unprecedented' penalty ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix.
Last weekend, Red Bull superstar Verstappen clinched his fourth successive F1 world title after finishing ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
However, there was no time for the Dutchman to party as F1 returned this week in Qatar.
On Saturday, Verstappen produced a stunning lap to seal pole position but was then summoned to the stewards for driving too slowly in preparation for his fast lap.
At the time, Mercedes driver George Russell was right behind the Dutchman and called his driving "super dangerous" on his team radio.
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As a result, Verstappen was handed an unprecedented one-place grid penalty, meaning he will start P2, with Russell upgraded to pole.
Sky Sports F1 wrote on social media: "BREAKING: Max Verstappen has been given an unprecedented one-grid place penalty and loses pole position to George Russell for the Qatar Grand Prix."
In addition to his grid drop, Verstappen has also been added one penalty point on his super license, his sixth of the year, collecting 12 in a 12-month period would lead to a one-race ban. You can watch the incident below.
Explaining their decision, F1's governing body, the FIA, said: "Car 1 was on a different preparation strategy to that of Car 63. Car 1 was well outside of the delta and the driver of Car 1 explained he had let Cars 4 and 14 past.
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“The driver of Car 63 claimed that he had adhered to the delta and did not expect Car 1 to be on the racing line. He stated that if a car was going slow in a high speed corner, it should not be on the racing line.
“The stewards regard this case as a complicated one in that clearly Car 1 did not comply with the Race Director’s Event Notes and clearly was driving, in our determination, unnecessarily slowly considering the circumstances."
The official document continued: “It was obvious the driver of Car 1 was attempting to cool his tyres. He also could see Car 63 approaching as he looked in his mirror multiple times whilst on the small straight between Turns 11 and 12.
“Unusually, this incident occurred when neither car was on a push lap. Had Car 63 been on a push lap, the penalty would have most likely been the usual 3 grid position penalty, however in mitigation of penalty, it was obvious that the driver of Car 63 had clear visibility of Car 1 and that neither car was on a push lap.”