Verstappen: We should stay at home if penalty comes

I don't even understand the rationale for this being seriously under investigation. A year ago this wouldn't have even been investigated. Had it been in the midfield I don't think they would have looked at it. Max had the racing line. He did a normal line on the corner. Leclerc was beaten the moment he went side by side outside of the racing line into the corner. It was awesome that Leclerc defended to the end, and even had contact. Loved it. But Max put a hard move. Simple.

I've been very critical of Max the last couple of years with other clumsy immature moves. He deserved just about every penalty he's earned in the past. This, however, was just awesome racing.

Also, I think comparisons to Canada are asinine. For starters, Verstappen didn't lose control of his car, he didn't barge into the racing line, he didn't squeeze someone into a wall, and Max also didn't turn into an oncoming car.

Tho they gave a penalty to ricciardo in France when he forced lando off track, and they gave it to Rosberg in 2016 when he forced Hamilton off track. I don't think there should be a penalty but given the past they have to do it, or they'll be incoherents (as always)

I can kinda see it, since Lec had to go off-track in a kinda evasive maneuver, yet he was kinda the one in charge of making a maneuver that led to him having to take said evasive maneuver, since Max did have the line. At the end of the day I think it's more a spiel for the peanut gallery rather than a serious investigation, just an attempt to look fair. Neither you nor I am fans of Max (I just cheer because HONDA!!!... I'm sure nobody knew that!), but this time he should with all right escape scathe free. It was a racing incident at worst.

@Manto They did award Ric a penalty there yes, but it should be noted that Ric had repeated this move at least twice before during the race without penalties. He had a chance of stopping with it, yet he didn't. As for Ros vs Hammy: those moves were on another scale. Those two were ferocious against each other in a way we've rarely seen in F1 since before the 2000's, and it'll likely take another decade until we see it again, for better or worse.

After watching that overtake a couple of times and listening to guys like Damon Hill whom describe what is going on it was clear to me that it wasn't a penalty. The reason why is two fold. One Verstappen had the racing line and therefore it's his corner. Two during the overtake first Leclerc yields and than he steers towards Verstappen knowing that there is limited space, Verstappen did not change his steering angle.

That's actually what he did, he created the contact knowing that it would go to stewards investigation. Generally an overtaking driver applies the same strategy since leaving space during the overtake means that the overtaken car can get in front again if he can get on the power earlier. This is what happened the lap before, Verstappen did the overtake and Leclerc got in front of him again. Verstappen is a quick learner and adjusted the overtake strategy with an later apex and thus allowing no space on the exit for Leclerc.

I was thinking the same thing. That's the reason why they give Max more room because they know if it's a tight race he's going to crash into them. Now LeClerc looks week because he could have been more agressive. Crashing VER would have shown he's not the only one who has his elbows out.