Max Verstappen penalized with one grid position: the (few) precedents in F1 history. Max Verstappen’s penalty after qualifying for the Qatar GP is unprecedented, or almost.

The Penalty for Max Verstappen in Qatar
The penalty given to Max Verstappen after qualifying for the Qatar GP sparked debate. Not only because of the reasons provided by the panel of stewards – the Dutch driver was not penalized for impeding Russell but for driving too slowly during his cool-down lap – but also because of the nature of the penalty: a one-position grid drop. This type of penalty is actually not very common in F1, but there are at least a couple of precedents in recent (but not too recent) history of the championship.

What the FIA F1 Regulations Say
From this point of view, it should be noted that the FIA regulations support the Qatar GP stewards, led by former F1 driver Derek Warwick. The regulatory text does not specify exactly what penalty should be imposed for each violation, leaving the judges some discretion. Article 37.4 of the F1 sporting regulations states that “the stewards may […] drop a driver by the number of positions on the grid that they consider appropriate.”

At the same time, there is substantial precedent indicating that, for infringements related to impeding in qualifying – or similar situations, like the one involving Max Verstappen and George Russell in Q3 of Qatar – the usual penalty is a three-position grid drop. However, the stewards decided that since George Russell was not on a flying lap but was going faster than Max to meet the cooldown lap time limit set by the race director, a three-position drop would have been too severe.

The Precedents: Germany 2016 and Tuscany 2020
This is how Max Verstappen received a one-place penalty on the grid for the Qatar GP. This type of penalty is not entirely unprecedented in recent F1 history, but it has been applied only in a couple of instances, for completely different reasons.

The first precedent dates back to the 2016 German GP when Nico Hulkenberg (then driving for Force India) was penalized one grid position for mistakenly using a set of tires in qualifying that his team should have returned to the FIA after FP3. In that case, the German driver dropped from seventh to eighth on the grid, with Valtteri Bottas’ Williams taking advantage of the situation.

The second and most recent precedent occurred during the unique 2020 Tuscan GP at Mugello, which marked Ferrari’s 1000th Grand Prix. In this case, Sergio Perez, driving for Racing Point, was penalized with a one-position grid drop from sixth to seventh after causing a collision with Kimi Raikkonen in Friday’s FP2. As a result, his teammate at the time, Lance Stroll, gained a position on the grid.