With just under fifteen laps to go, everything seemed almost settled, with the two McLarens leading and Max Verstappen in third, closely chasing them with his aggressive three-stop strategy — realistically the only way to challenge the Woking team. However, everything changed a few laps from the end when Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s retirement brought out the Safety Car.
In just a few minutes, everything the Dutchman had built fell apart, because during the pit stop the team fitted a set of hard tyres, which are significantly harder to bring up to temperature, especially considering it’s the hardest compound in the entire range.
The difficulty in heating up the tyres became immediately apparent at the restart, when he suffered oversteer exiting the final corner and lost traction on acceleration, becoming easy prey for Charles Leclerc on the straight — the two even made contact.
However, the most controversial episode came shortly after, when Russell also tried to take advantage of the situation to pass the Dutchman at Turn 1. The two made contact, with Russell pushing the limits so much that he lost control of his car, sending Verstappen wide, who cut across the first chicane and regained the position from the Briton.
Fearing that cutting the chicane might result in a time penalty — which could drop him down the order and cost him valuable points for the Drivers’ Championship — Red Bull advised Verstappen to give the position back, hoping the stewards would show leniency. This was similar to what happened in Imola with Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon, when the Monegasque was spared a penalty for giving the place back.
Verstappen returned the position a couple of laps later, but tried to do so cleverly — letting Russell through just before the braking zone to immediately dive back inside and retake the place. It’s a trick he’s used before and one that has often worked, allowing him to effectively keep position.
However, in his attempt to regain the position, the four-time world champion collided with Russell again. The stewards deemed him at fault and gave him a 10-second penalty, which dropped him to tenth and hurt his championship hopes, especially in light of McLaren’s one-two finish.
There are, however, two key points to examine. First, Verstappen actually didn’t need to give the position back, contrary to what his team had advised. This was confirmed by the stewards in the official statement, where they noted: “Although the front axle of car 63 [Russell] was ahead of the mirror of car 1 [Verstappen] at the apex, Russell temporarily lost control, leading to contact with car 1 and pushing it off the track.”
“Given that car 1 left the track due to car 63’s loss of control and subsequent contact, car 1 did not deliberately leave the track. Therefore, no penalty will be applied.”
One of the FIA’s long-standing principles is that an overtake must be completed with the car fully under control — both before and at the apex of the corner — a condition the stewards believed was not met in this case. In effect, Verstappen unnecessarily gave the position back to Russell, triggering the sequence of events that followed.
The second key point: as a result of the later contact with Russell at Turn 5, Verstappen was not only hit with a 10-second penalty that dropped him to tenth place, but also received 3 penalty points on his super license. That brings the three-time world champion to 11 points — just one short of the 12-point threshold that triggers a race ban.
Each driver has 12 points on their license, and if that limit is reached within a 12-month period, the driver is suspended for one race — as happened last year to Kevin Magnussen, who had to skip the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Verstappen must now be extremely cautious not only in Canada but also in Austria.
At the end of June, Max Verstappen will lose two penalty points that were applied nearly a year ago for contact with Lando Norris — also in Austria. However, those points won’t be removed until June 30, after both the Canadian and Austrian Grands Prix.
After the race, Verstappen didn’t go deep into the controversy with Russell, except for a few sharp words — including: “Next time I’ll bring him some tissues,” when asked to comment on the Briton’s remarks that his move set a bad example for kids watching at home.
He did, however, want to emphasise how the current racing standards are unnatural and hard to understand — something Leclerc also complained about in Imola. “On the hard tyres, we just had no grip, we had no softs left because of our three-stop strategy, so basically it was just bad luck.”
“I think up to that point, the race was going quite well for us. We didn’t have McLaren’s pace, of course, but with that three-stop strategy, it was still looking like a fight. We were putting them under some pressure at least, forcing them to push. But unfortunately, the Safety Car came out at the wrong time — though that’s part of racing too.”
“Then with the hard tyres I had oversteer and struggled to keep up with the guys on softs. I was already hit on the straight, and then again into Turn 1. Then they told me to give the position back, but honestly, I think the bigger issue is that the driving standards — what’s allowed and what isn’t — are not very natural, and that’s pretty frustrating. Sometimes it works in your favour, sometimes it doesn’t — and today it didn’t.”
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