The FIA stewards have revealed that Max Verstappen would have ordinarily received a 10-second time penalty for his incident with Oscar Piastri at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and only got away with a five-second reprimand due to it being the opening lap of the race. Verstappen was pipped to the apex of Turn One by the McLaren driver, who then drove deep into the Turn-One left-hander. The Red Bull man tried to hang it out around the outside but ran out of tarmac and was forced to take to the run-off area. From there, he opted against giving the position back and instead tried to extend his lead.
The stewards responded with a five-second time penalty. When served during the first round of pit stops, this cycled Piastri through to the lead, and from there, the Australian racer was out of reach for Verstappen. After the session, Verstappen was visibly irritated, keeping his media answers short and staying close to silent in the cooldown room. However, the post-race stewards’ report explained that in ordinary circumstances, the 27-year-old would have received a 10-second time penalty.
Verstappen wasn’t the only member of the Red Bull entourage unimpressed by the stewards’ decision. Team principal Christian Horner arrived at his media duties with printed screenshots from his driver’s onboard cameras, alleging that they showed him ahead on the entry to the corner.
“I thought it was very harsh,” Horner said in his post-race media briefing after producing the print-outs. “We didn’t concede the position because we didn’t believe that he’d [done] anything wrong.
“You can quite clearly see at the apex of the corner, we believed that Max is clearly ahead. The rules of engagement they discussed previously, and it was a very harsh decision.”
Horner then added: “Everything has to be objectively looked at in isolation, and that’s a really marginal call. I think the stewards, obviously… we spoke to them after the race, they think it was a slam dunk. So the problem is, if we’re to protest it, then they’re gonna most likely hold the line.
“We’ll ask them to have a look at the onboard footage that wasn’t available at the time. But, yeah, I think that’s what it is. When you look at that, I can’t see how they got to that conclusion. They’ve both gone in at the same speed.
“Oscar has run deep into the corner. Max can’t just disappear at this point in time. So perhaps these rules need a relook at. I don’t know what’s happened to ‘let them race’ on the first lap. That seems to have been abandoned.”
