Max Verstappen escaped a harsher punishment than his five-second time penalty at the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix.
The Dutchman was adjudged to have left the track to gain an advantage over Oscar Piastri on the first lap.
Verstappen was handed a five-second time penalty – but the stewards noted that it would have been a 10-second punishment had the incident occurred later in the race.
As part of their findings, the stewards said: “Ordinarily, the baseline penalty for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage is 10 seconds. However, given that this was lap one and turn one incident, we considered that to be a mitigating circumstance and imposed a five-second time penalty instead.”
