Max Verstappen one penalty point away from suspension after clash with George Russell

Max Verstappen received a ten-second penalty at the Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix for an incident in the closing laps with George Russell. That penalty dropped the Red Bull driver down to P10 in the final results.

But what came after has him on the cusp of a one-race penalty ban.

Following a late-stage restart Verstappen and Russell battled into the first turn in Barcelona. Red Bull instructed Verstappen to give a place back to the Mercedes driver, believing that Verstappen has left the track and gained an advantage.

Verstappen immediately told his team that he disagreed with the order, but did slow at Turn 5 to let Russell by. However, once Russell passed him, Verstappen accelerated and collided with the Mercedes.

You can see the incident, as well as hear Verstappen’s audio, here:

According to a decision released by race officials:

“[f]rom 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 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.”

The ten-second penalty was not the only sanction handed down by race officials. The stewards also hit Verstappen with a three-point penalty, which raises his total to 11.

Drivers who receive 12 points in a single calendar year are given a one-race suspension.

The next points that will come off Verstappen’s Super License are the two that he received at the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix for causing a collision with Lando Norris in the closing stages of that race. Those penalty points expire on June 30th.

That means Verstappen will need to navigate the Canadian Grand Prix as well as the Austrian Grand Prix without incident to avoid a penalty.

Verstappen was at risk of an additional penalty as stewards investigated an incident with Charles Leclerc, when the two drivers also came together late in the race. While race officials found that collision was “avoidable,” they also found that neither driver was “wholly or predominantly to blame,” and dismissed the investigation without further action.

After the race, both Russell and Verstappen had their say.

“My perspective is that I just got crashed into! I don’t really know why or what the thinking was behind it. In the end, I’m glad that I continued with little damage and ultimately it punished him a lot more than me,” said Russell.

“That’s how Max goes racing. As I said, he was in P4, I was in P5 – I ended up P4, he ended up P10, so from my side I’m glad that I managed to finish the race,” added the Mercedes driver. “Not really sure what he was thinking because he cost himself and his team a lot of points, so no conversation really required.”

Verstappen was more tight-lipped.

“I don’t need to say anything about it because it doesn’t matter anyway,” said the Red Bull driver.

Verstappen’s tenth-place finish, coupled with a win from Oscar Piastri and a second-place finish from Lando Norris, dropped the Red Bull driver further away from his two McLaren rivals. Piastri now leads the Drivers’ Championship race with 186 points, followed by Norris with 176.

Verstappen trails Piastri by 39 points, as he has 137 on the season. He is also 29 points behind Norris.