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Red Bull's Max Verstappen has lost his provisional pole position this afternoon after being found guilty of speeding under yellow flags during the last few moments of Q3, also taking a three penalty and two penalty points for the infringement.
Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas crashed at the final Peraltada corner, bringing out the yellow flags as other drivers rounded the corner to finish their final runs, ending any chance of some late changes in the grid order.
Verstappen had been found to have not slowed to a sufficient speed coming through the final sector, and was summoned to see the stewards after the session. An official statement from the FIA read:
"Driver of car 33 [Verstappen] admitted that he was aware that car 77 [Bottas] crashed and did see the car on the left hand side of the track, but was not aware of the yellow flag. He also admitted not reducing his speed on the yellow sector."
The statement also noted the stewards' acknowledgement that the car ahead of Verstappen at the time, Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel managed to reduce his speed when he came upon the scene of the accident.
"Do we have to go there, to safety? I think we know what we are doing otherwise we would not be driving an F1 car," Verstappen commented. "It’s qualifying and, yeah you go for it. Like I said before if they want to delete the lap, then delete the lap."
This now means that Verstappen will now lose his pole position to Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, and will drop three places down the grid for tomorrow's race, starting alongside Lewis Hamilton on the second row.
It's an absolute shame, but he 100% deserves a penalty. A harsh one too. You can't floor it under double yellows with a fellow driver wrecked on the site of the track. I hate to say it, but in this case he deserves a very harsh penalty. Anything other than that would set a terrible precedent.
Yes, harsh and fair. This one was a pretty blatant offense.
It wasn't double yellow...he did go slower (perhaps not sufficient). As the accident happened in the last corner, he would have been faster anyway as he already gained 0.2s.
They should have deleted the lap and be on with it. But they really want Ferrari to be on pole i guess.
You are right. But only
about it was single yellow. I’m a huge fan of Max AND Dutch, but Max was wrong here. He should have lifted, no matter if 1, 2 or none yellow flag was waved. He saw Bottas in the barrier, that should be enough to pull down.
That said that lap should have been stripped not his prior time.
The lap time was but the grid penalty was more for unsafe driving, look what happened recently when a car hit another that was involved in an incident...the driver died.. in my opinion it should have been a harsher punishment, he got off lightly with only 3 grid spots
It's a pity for Max. He drove an excellent lap, but rules are rules. Remember Vettel in USA, he also got a three place penalty, because he did not lift enough when there was a red flag, and that was in free practice and there were not even other cars on the track, just gravel. So Max got the right penalty and could have even gotten a heavier penalty. It sucks for him and his fans, but after what happen in Belgium everyone can agree rules around safety is very important.
Good,
He's a danger to himself, other drivers and track workers,
How did he know the next corner he flew round he wouldn't collect a crashed car or a track worker,
The penalty isn't great enough.
Should be right to the back of the grid for this dangerous type of driving,
I think it's fair. He already had a fast laptime, so it makes his choice of speeding during yellow flag even more baffling, and IMO, just deleting the laptime wasn't sufficient when he broke the rules while a fellow driver was in a barrier. Should it be harsher? I don't think so. 3 Places down on the start is already pretty big. It's things like these that limit Max from becoming a true great.
He let the genie out of the bottle with his aggressive driving and others followed suit. Now when other drivers do things to him that he did to them un-apologetically, then he complains like a little drama queen. Just when he starts to look like he's maturing and making improvements he does something dumb again. His collision with LeClerc obviously wasn't his fault, but his reaction that I saw in a post race interview just came off as really juvenile. I can understand that he has had to learn the hard way what the line is for penalties so it appears now he is very quick to call foul on other drivers when they do something he's done in the past. With this penalty he did a blistering 'banker' and then just threw it away. Kind of hard for me to feel sorry for him when he does that kind of stuff.
He definitely deserves it. After all, there comes a time when we all have to follow the rules. Otherwise, the world will turn into a real jungle. Max has to learn his lesson -and learn it well- because, along with his passion, he has brought a little of jungle to the sport. He should study the example of the great Kimi, a world champion and an impeccable driver.
Hamilton improved from an 1m15.290 to 1m15.262 in his last attempt. Is that being investigated too? Or was he ahead of Bottas when #77 crashed out?
The guy is a total idiot, sorry. He admitted he saw the crash and decided to crack on anyway. No-one is bigger than the sport, and no-one should be taking risks with other people's lives. He deserves the deduction and frankly he was lucky it stopped at that. I though Max had matured a lot in the last year, maybe I was wrong. Zero sympathy.
Agree with you totally! He’s showed everyone he’s still a immature kid. Bottas could have been severely hurt and Verstappen didn’t care at all.
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ajpennypacker
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It's an absolute shame, but he 100% deserves a penalty. A harsh one too. You can't floor it under double yellows with a fellow driver wrecked on the site of the track. I hate to say it, but in this case he deserves a very harsh penalty. Anything other than that would set a terrible precedent.