Verstappen loses pole in Qatar after FIA sanction

The already four-time world champion He surprised everyone with an almost miraculous recovery during the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix to take pole position this Saturday, but the race management noted an incident by the Dutchman at the end of Q3 compared to the second classified, George Russellwhich was investigated after the session.

Before the last lap of Q3 which decided the pole in favor of Max VerstappenRussell hit the Dutch driver in the middle of his path as he heated his tires in the final corners of Losail (12, 13 and 14 precisely) and was forced to brake to avoid a possible collision.

This also caused the Dutchman to reduce his pace and leave.unnecessarily slow“, which caused exceeds the minimum delta stipulated for this circuitwhich the regulations clearly prohibit, which is why he had to go and testify before the commissioners.

After listening to the words of the pilot and his team, FIA Sporting Stewards in Qatar have made the decision to penalize Max Verstappen with a starting grid position and tomorrow he will have to start from 2nd place, while pole position was inherited precisely by the other driver involved in the incident: George Russell.

Here is how the FIA ​​explained it through an official press release:

car 1 [Max Verstappen] had a different preparation strategy than car 63 [George Russell]. Car 1 was outside the delta and the driver of car 1 explained that he had let cars 4 and 14 pass.

The driver of car 63 said he got stuck in the delta and didn't expect car 1 to be on the line. He said if a car is going slowly through a high-speed corner, it should not be in the path.

The stewards consider this case to be complicated because car 1 did not meet the race director's notes and, in our opinion, was driving unnecessarily slowly given the circumstances.

It was obvious that the driver of Car 1 was trying to cool his tires. He was also able to see car 63 approaching when he looked in the rearview mirror several times on the short straight between turns 11 and 12.

Unusually, this incident occurred while neither car was completing a fast lap. If car 63 had put in a fast lap, the penalty might have been the usual three positions on the grid.

However, to mitigate the penalty, it was evident that the driver of car 63 had good visibility of car 1 and neither car was in a qualifying lap.

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