Verstappen thought he had put his Red Bull on pole for Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix, clocking a time 0.055s faster than George Russell in the Mercedes, but it is now Russell who inherits pole after the stewards docked the slow-moving Verstappen a place on the grid.
The stewards had already warned that driving too slowly on a cool-down lap would be given the iron-fist treatment after Sprint qualifying, with Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez reprimanded for that.
Their Perez verdict ended with the following warning:
“The stewards advise all competitors that particular attention will be paid to adherence to the event notes in the qualifying session and that any potentially dangerous behaviour or impeding may result in the application of grid penalties.”
In Verstappen’s case, he received the very rare punishment of a one-place grid drop after being deemed to have been driving too slowly in preparation for his final pole attempt, with Russell taking evasive action as he reached the Red Bull near the Turn 11 apex, calling it “super dangerous” over team radio.
And in addition, the stewards have decided to add a penalty point to Verstappen’s superlicence, which takes him to six in total.
Collecting 12 in a 12-month period – as Kevin Magnussen found out earlier this year – triggers a one-race ban.
The stewards, explaining Verstappen’s punishments, 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.
“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.
“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.”
Article 12.4.1.f. of the International Sporting Code does permit the stewards to impose a grid penalty of any number they deem appropriate.
