The outlook for Verstappen in 2025 is not promising. The Dutchman will need to tread carefully in the early part of the season, as a suspension looms on the horizon.
The 2025 Formula 1 season will be unusual for Red Bull, as it is likely the team will not start the year with the best car on the grid for the first time in three years. Adding to their challenges, Max Verstappen faces the risk of receiving a suspension early in the season, as warned by Helmut Marko.
Max Verstappen currently has eight penalty points on his Super License, having gained two more for his collision with Oscar Piastri at the start of the Abu Dhabi GP. For the incident, the race stewards handed Verstappen a 10-second penalty, leaving him to finish sixth in the final race of the 2024 season.
According to Formula 1 regulations, any driver who accumulates 12 penalty points within a rolling 12-month period will be suspended from the next race they are scheduled to compete in. This scenario is not unprecedented in recent seasons.
Just a few months ago, Oliver Bearman had to replace Kevin Magnussen at the Azerbaijan GP after the Danish driver was disqualified for reaching the 12-point penalty threshold. Now, with eight points on his license, Verstappen is at risk of missing a race in 2025.
Just four points away from suspension, the Red Bull driver must navigate the first 11 rounds of the 2025 season cautiously before reclaiming two points on June 30, 2025, the day after the Austrian GP.
Verstappen at Risk of Suspension, Marko: “We Have to Be Careful”
Speaking to the German edition of Sky, Helmut Marko said: “He’s lost two more points and is now at eight; we have to be careful. Some stewards impose harsher penalties, but this is a problem for everyone. It’s been said that greater consistency would be better.”
After receiving news of his 10-second penalty in Abu Dhabi, the four-time world champion expressed his anger to his race engineer, lashing out at the stewards: “Can we ask for 20 seconds? Stupid idiots!”
Following the race, Helmut Marko felt compelled to comment on Verstappen’s outburst: “It wasn’t very diplomatic; it’s emotions, and at that moment, you’re not thinking very diplomatically. Maybe not everything needs to be broadcast. In football, not everyone has a microphone on them, and I don’t want to imagine the kind of comments they make.”
If Verstappen reaches 12 penalty points before the end of June 2025, he would become the first reigning champion to be suspended from a race.
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