Max Verstappen penalized after F1 Sprint at São Paulo Grand Prix

Max Verstappen did a fantastic job of mitigating the damage in Saturday’s F1 Sprint Race at the São Paulo Grand Prix, climbing up to a third-place finish to hold Lando Norris to just a two-point gain on him in the Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship standings.

However, Verstappen was dropped to fourth after being assessed a five-place penalty, along with a single penalty point, on his Super License.

In the closing stages of Saturday’s F1 Sprint Race Haas driver Nico Hülkenberg pulled off the racing line and into the grass, as his VF-24 appeared to suffer a mechanical failure. Smoke had been seen coming out the back of Hülkenberg’s car in the moments before. That brought out a yellow flag initially, as the Haas driver tried to get his car into a safer position.

That was when McLaren got the window they needed to swap Oscar Piastri — who started in pole position and maintained the lead into the closing laps — and Norris at the front of the grid. Shortly after the switch was made, race officials called for a Virtual Safety Car, giving Verstappen a chance to perhaps work by Piastri and put Norris under pressure when racing resumed.

However, now race officials are looking at that green flag restart, which you can see here:

As the racing resumed on the final lap, Verstappen pulled alongside Piastri for a moment, before falling back in line behind the Australian driver. As James Hinchcliffe noted in the above clip, the timing of that move — and when Verstappen was given the green flag — is in question.

Verstappen has been summoned to meet with race stewards at 12:45 p.m. local time:

At question is Article 56.5 of the F1 Sporting Regulations, which reads as follows:

All competing cars must reduce speed and stay above the minimum time set by the FIA ECU at least once in each marshalling sector and at both the first and second safety car lines (a marshalling sector is defined as the section of track between each of the FIA light panels).

All cars must also be above this minimum time when the FIA light panels change to green (see Article 56.7 below).

When initiated during the sprint session or a race, the stewards may impose any of the penalties under Article 54.3a), 54.3b), 54.3c) or 54.3d) on any driver who fails to stay above the minimum time as required by the above.

The penalties outlined in those articles include both a five-second penalty and a ten-second penalty. These are the provisional results of the F1 Sprint on Saturday in Brazil:

However, race officials have now issued their decision, hitting Verstappen with a five-second penalty which drops him to fourth, promoting Charles Leclerc to P3 in the F1 Sprint Race:

As noted by race officials:

The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 1 (Max Verstappen), team representative and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, timing, telemetry evidence.

Article 56.5 states in part “All cars must also be above this minimum time when the FIA light panels change to green.” The driver was 0.63 seconds below the minimum time at VSC End when the FIA light panels changed to green. This indicates a sporting advantage gained under VSC. The driver explained that as he was awaiting VSC to end and he got the notification that he was below the minimum time, he attempted to correct the error but failed to do so by the point that the panels turned green. This is a breach and the standard penalty is applied for the advantage gained at that time.

As a result, Verstappen comes away with five points from the F1 Sprint Race, instead of the sixth awarded to the third-place finisher. That means Norris inched three points closer to Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship, instead of two.