2 weeks Ago By The Straits Times
Red Bull's Max Verstappen (front) and McLaren's Lando Norris in action during the Mexico City Grand Prix. MEXICO CITY – McLaren team chief Zak Brown praised the race stewards for handing Max Verstappen 20 seconds in penalties on Oct 27, adding that it was “probably not enough” after the three-time world champion finished sixth in the Mexico City Grand Prix. Verstappen, the championship leader but without a win in 10 races since the Spanish Grand Prix in May, was penalised for his over-aggressive driving in two bruising incidents with Norris in the early stages of the race.
In both, he pushed the Briton off the circuit, as he had in similar circumstances a week earlier in Austin during the United States Grand Prix. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who leaves the team to be replaced by seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton in 2025, won the race ahead of Norris with his teammate Charles Leclerc third in the second Ferrari. “It’s probably not enough.
I mean it’s getting a bit ridiculous. I applaud the FIA stewards. Enough is enough.
Let’s just have some good clean racing moving forwards,” said Brown. “I think the stewards are on it, I think that’s clear by the penalties that were given. The stewards did a good job this weekend.
” Norris said: “I go into every race expecting a tough battle with Max. It’s clear that it doesn’t matter if he wins or (finishes) second, his only job is to beat me in the race. And he’ll sacrifice himself to do that, like he did today.
.. “But I think today was not fair, clean racing.
And therefore, I think he got what he had coming to him.” Verstappen started from second on the grid alongside pole sitter Sainz and passed him at the start to lead the early laps before the Spaniard passed him shortly before he began his scrap with Norris. The result meant that Verstappen’s lead in the title race was trimmed by 10 points to 47 while in the constructors’ championship, Ferrari overtook Red Bull to move up to second, 29 points adrift of leaders McLaren with four race weekends remaining.
Verstappen shrugged off the penalties as “quite big” but said he felt more concerned at Red Bull’s loss of competitive pace which contributed to his being involved in controversial incidents. “The problem is that when you’re slower, you are being put in those kind of positions and I’m not going to give up easily,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s not about agreeing or disagreeing about penalties.
.. The only thing is 20 seconds is quite a lot, but the biggest problem of today and something that I worry about is the race pace which was really not good and something that we need to analyse.
“Even without those penalties we had no chance at all to fight up front.” He added that he was not too concerned about seeing his lead cut in the championship. “I’m not worried,” he said.
“This was just a really bad day for us, but I also know we can do much better than this so we just keep going at it.” On a bad day for Red Bull, with Sergio Perez also penalised five seconds for making a false start before eventually finishing 17th, team boss Christian Horner was defensive. He said: “This is dangerous territory – when is a ‘dive bomb’ going to be ok? “The drivers and the FIA need to sit down together and sort out some agreement.
The two time penalties for Max were a bit on the hard side today.” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, however, felt stewards had set a precedent in punishing Verstappen. “A driver will always push to the limit and when.
.. the execution of the rules or interpretation of the rules allow a certain way of racing then a driver like Max is always going to exploit it,” said Wolff.
“And I think now there has been a new interpretation, execution of those regulations. I think it will change the way everybody races in the future,” added the Austrian. “You won’t see that any more.
” Sainz, meanwhile, was delighted to win in front of his mother for the first time, ahead of his move to Williams next season. He said: ““I thought it could be very nice that one of my last victories with Ferrari came at such a special circuit, with all my family here. It’s the first time my mother has come to see me win, so I was particularly looking forward to it.
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