The race commissioners have decided: Max Verstappen will be retrospectively given a time penalty for violating the VSC rules.
Max Verstappen has received a retrospective penalty after the F1 sprint in Brazil. The world champion had to explain himself to the FIA race commissioners for a possible violation of the virtual safety car rules. And for that he received a five-second penalty, which threw him back from third to fourth place.
The virtual safety car was called out during the final stages of the sprint race because Nico Hülkenberg’s Haas had rolled to a stop in the second sector with a technical problem.
At that time, Verstappen was in pursuit of the two leading McLaren of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who had given each other DRS. However, there was no possible attack by Verstappen because he was disturbed by the VSC.
At one point, the championship leader did not agree with Piastri’s driving and suggested that the scene should be watched if the Australian drove too slowly and deliberately allowed the gap to Norris to become too large.
Instead, he himself came under scrutiny by the stewards for allegedly driving too fast – a violation of Article 56.5 of the sporting regulations.
This states: “All participating vehicles must reduce speed and respect the minimum time set by the FIA-ECU at least once in each minisector and at the first and second safety car line.”
In the FIA ruling, the commissioners state that Verstappen violated the minimum prescribed time by 0.63 seconds. During his hearing, Verstappen explained that he had expected the VSC to end and that when he realized he was too fast, he tried to correct the mistake. But by the time he realized it was too late, the lights had switched to green.
What was said after the F1 sprint
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told Sky after the race that the team could not see any infringement: “Everything we see looks okay,” said the Briton.
Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko said something similar: “Our people are checking it out right now. It’s about starting too early during the safety car, but you have to divide that between the three sectors, it’s about milliseconds. If it is, then it’s very close,” said the Austrian. “The gap has narrowed a bit, according to race control. We’ll see.”
UPDATE: Stewards are investigating Max Verstappen for a Virtual Safety Car Infringement F1Sprint BrazilGP pic .twitter.com/sCO26Uo7mt
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But Marko took it easy at first: “Whether we have one point more or less doesn’t matter. The speed was crucial, the tire wear was very positive, so we’ll take that with us.”
Verstappen finished third and lost two points to Lando Norris. The Dutchman had started the race from fourth place on the grid and was able to pass Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc during the sprint when he overtook him on the way into turn 4.
“We had a good pace,” Verstappen praises. ‘But I was just stuck in the DRS train and had to wait for my moment to attack Charles. He had a few moments in the race and then made a mistake in turn 1. I then had a good run out of turn 3 and was able to overtake him.’
Too late to pass Leclerc
“Unfortunately a bit too late, but there wasn’t much more I could do. If you’re on the DRS train, you can’t attack. But the pace was good,” he says. “At least we were able to be in the fight, which hasn’t been the case recently. That’s promising.”
“I think we were absolutely on a par with McLaren in terms of speed, if not faster,” says Marko, full of praise. “The start wasn’t ideal, then he braked too late for Turn 1, otherwise he might have caught Leclerc. And Leclerc, by defending himself very cleverly, deprived us of the opportunity to attack the McLarens.”
He believes that Verstappen could have got past Piastri too, “but then the virtual safety car came out. But bottom line: we improved significantly compared to the training session.”