Max Verstappen issued another penalty and risks race ban after George Russell incident | F1 | Sport
Max Verstappen has been issued three penalty points on his licence after crashing into George Russell during the latter stages of the Spanish Grand Prix. The Red Bull man was slapped with a 10-second time penalty for an earlier incident with Charles Leclerc, which saw him drop to 10th place.
Verstappen is now one penalty point away from facing a race ban so must be on his best behaviour during the Canadian Grand Prix in two weeks time. After that race, two points fall will fall off his licence and he will have a little breathing space again.
A late Safety Car brought a quiet Spanish GP to life when it bunched up the pack. Verstappen, who had pitted for fresh hard tyres, came under instant attack from the trailing Charles Leclerc. The pair made contact as the Ferrari man leapfrogged his Red Bull rival, which led to Verstappen dropping to fifth.
Verstappen then had to fight off the challenge of Russell, which his team felt he did so unfairly. Verstappen was fuming after being told by Christian Horner over the team radio to let Russell through. The Dutchman slowed down and appeared to intentionally drive into the Mercedes. He then continued on the accelerator to keep his fifth position.
The stewards said: “From the radio communications, it was clear that the driver of Car 1 was asked by his team to ‘give the position back’ to Car 63 for what they perceived to be an earlier breach by Car 1 for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage (in fact, we had later determined that we would take no further action in relation to that incident).
“The driver of Car 1 was clearly unhappy with his team’s request to give the position back. At the approach to Turn 5, Car 1 significantly reduced its speed thereby appearing to allow Car 63 to overtake.
“However, after Car 63 got ahead of Car 1 at the entry of Turn 5, Car 1 suddenly accelerated and collided with Car 63. The collision was undoubtedly caused by the actions of Car 1. We therefore imposed a 10 second time penalty on Car 1.”
After the race Russell said: “I’m too close to give my opinion on behalf of the drivers. It’s like in Austin last year, some of the best moves ever then you go to Mexico and he lets himself down a bit.
“You go to Imola with one of the best moves of all-time, then this happens. It cost him and his team a lot of points. Charles and I actually dropped off like a stone on those last two laps.
“He probably could have come back to fight for the podium, so I won’t lose any sleep [over it]. We have our own problems and that’s making our car go faster.”
