Stewards seem to contradict themselves in their verdict for Verstappen
Red Bull Content Pool
General
- GPblog.com
At Red Bull Racing they were convinced they could prove with data that Max Verstappen would not receive a penalty for the braking incident with Lewis Hamilton in Saudi Arabia, but late Sunday night the stewards decided otherwise. Here's why Verstappen is deemed guilty after all.
The stewards say they have reviewed footage and telemetry data and that based on that, it can be judged that Verstappen was clearly the one at fault.
"At turn 21 the driver of car 33 was given the instruction to give back a position to car 44 and was told by the team to do so “strategically”. Car 33 slowed significantly at turn 26. However, it was obvious that neither driver wanted to take the lead prior to DRS detection line 3", reads the statement.
Stewards contradict each other?
However, the stewards state that Hamilton did not know Verstappen was going to give him back his position, while they do understand that Hamilton did not want to go over the DRS checkpoint first. This seems to be contradictory.
"The driver of Car 33 stated that he was wondering why Car 44 had not overtaken and the driver of Car 44 stated that, not having been aware at that stage that Car 33 was giving the position back, was unaware of the reason Car 33 was slowing. In deciding to penalise the driver of Car 33, the key point for the Stewards was that the driver of Car 33 then braked suddenly (69 bar) and significantly, resulting in 2.4g deceleration."
Verstappen presses the brakes too hard
However, Verstappen's sudden braking was seen as irregular by the stewards and is therefore identified as the main cause of the collision. Red Bull Racing can of course appeal the stewards' decision. Whether they will do so is unknown.