Why was Verstappen penalized at the Spanish Grand Prix?
Formula One's governing body, the FIA has revealed that the stewards would have not penalized Max Verstappen for his first-corner incident after the restart which means that Red Bull were wrong to ask Verstappen to let George Russell past.
Reigning F1 champion Max Verstappen was in contention for victory at the Spanish Grand Prix as he opted for an ambitious three-stop strategy.
However, a late safety car saw the field close up, and the Dutchman suffered a huge oversteer exiting the final corner as the safety car peeled into the pits. As a result of it, he lost his third place to Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc.
Mercedes driver George Russell also launched multiple attacks on Verstappen. Red Bull instructed Verstappen to hand the place back to Russell following their scarp at Turn 1.
With just three laps left to go, the Dutchman slowed down at Turn 5, and Russell completed the move on the outside, but the reigning champion appeared to speed back up again, leading to contact between the pair.
The four-time F1 champion would eventually let Russell through into Turn 11, but the stewards elected to hand out a ten-second time penalty to Verstappen for causing a collision at Turn 5.
The stewards noted: "The Stewards reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video, timing, telemetry, and in-car video evidence.
"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."
