Max Verstappen doesn’t like penalties in Formula 1. As he said following the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, “that’s not how [it was when] I grew up watching Formula 1”. But in some ways, it’s exactly what F1 has always been about.
He’s hardly an unbiased witness in this case given he said that not long after he was on the receiving end of a penalty, as well as instructions to cede places to avoid penalties, during the race in Jeddah.
But regardless of where you stand on Verstappen’s on-track conduct, it’s a sentiment that’s easy to agree with.
The comment was made in response to a question from ESPN journalist Laurence Edmondson, who asked whether Verstappen was concerned that the title might be decided by “penalties rather than racing”. His answer was short and clear.
“It’s not only this race, but in general lately, the trend in F1,” said Verstappen.
“That’s not how I grew up watching Formula 1. But it is what it is and we just have to deal with it and move on.”
Broadly speaking, I agree with Verstappen’s point in that it is frustrating that F1 has become so over-regulated. That doesn’t mean that his Jeddah penalty was incorrect in isolation, merely that his point resonates.
But penalties – or at least, the hullabaloo surrounding them with drivers and teams calling for others to be punished while they escape censure themselves – are a manifestation of something that has always existed in F1. It’s just one more competitive battleground where an edge is to be found.
If we take a broad view of what constitutes his period of when he “grew up”, so from his birth in September 1997 up until his graduation to F1 in 2015, there’s been no lack of penalties.
In his early weeks on this planet, Jacques Villeneuve was given a one-race ban (he raced at Suzuka under appeal, later withdrawn) for ignoring yellow flags and Michael Schumacher was excluded from second in the ’97 world championship for the infamous Jerez collision.
In the years since, the frequency of penalties – both the big-ticket ones like those two examples and the more run-of-the-mill ones – has increased.
Verstappen himself has been the recipient of penalties in his time in F1, but he’s also advocated for others to be penalised. After all, he argued that Hamilton’s penalty for being predominantly to blame for their collision at Copse at Silverstone should have been “more severe”.
He also complained about Valtteri Bottas driving too slowly under the safety car in Saudi Arabia as he tried to set up a double-stack Mercedes pitstop, and over Hamilton leaving too big a gap on the ‘formation lap’ before a standing restart. That’s not something unique to Verstappen, most, if not all, of the drivers on the grid would have done the same.
Verstappen doesn’t appear to be above calling for penalties for others. And he can make a coherent case in two of those examples, the exception being the final one given that before standing restarts they are only de facto, rather than literal, formation laps therefore the car-length rule doesn’t apply.
This is not some grand charge of hypocrisy, it’s just a reality. Every team and driver has a sense of righteous indignation both about their rivals deserving penalties while usually being adamant they don’t deserve any they receive. That’s just the mindset, and while there are occasional cases of drivers accepting penalties as justified, most of the time they usually feel they are in the right.
That’s the case whether you are Verstappen, Hamilton or any of the other 18 drivers on the grid.
What Verstappen is right to say is that the calls for penalties are more frequent. Partly that reason is cultural, but it’s also driven by circumstance as, for example, there weren’t many asphalt run-off areas 30 years ago for Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell.
And you can be certain that, were asphalt run-off areas more common 30 years ago, then the demands for penalties would likely be as loud as they are today.
F1 drivers and teams have always sought any advantage they can get, certainly in what might be called the modern era of ultra-professionalism.
That’s why whenever anyone else commits some perceived infraction, no matter how minor, they are usually on the radio to the team – either to get the pitwall to report it or to create a message that will be heard by the race director.
There is a certain appeal to Verstappen’s more traditional all-out-attack approach, but were he to be taken out by Hamilton in a clash that allowed the Mercedes driver to continue and pick up the points needed to take the championship, I doubt he would be against a penalty deciding the destiny of the title.
Sporting competition is an unusual arena, especially when it comes to the high-pressure finale in Abu Dhabi after 21 races of this uniquely intense battle for the championship. Everything is heightened, paranoia creeps in and the competitive instinct urges, if not compels, every driver and team member to seek every possible advantage.
To that, we could add the word ‘legitimate’, but that can be in the eye of the beholder, as we’ve seen repeatedly this year.
Even to cite the grandest example of sporting decency in F1 history, Stirling Moss giving testimony that led to Mike Hawthorn avoiding exclusion from the 1958 Portuguese Grand Prix – which ultimately ensured he lost the world championship to him two races later – is simply an extreme case of where you place the line of legitimacy. That’s why even today it’s cited.
F1’s penalties have become muddled and inconsistent recently, with precedents set and then just as quickly discarded. Attempts to justify diametrically-opposite interpretations of the racing regulations have created serious problems and Verstappen is right to tire of them.
Regardless of your position on Verstappen’s defence at Turn 4 at Interlagos and what happened at Turn 1 in Jeddah, his complaint that “in Brazil it was fine and now suddenly I get a penalty for it” is a legitimate one.
But this is absolutely the F1 that Verstappen grew up watching. Yes, you can argue that line is being taken a little too seriously, and he could be citing earlier less intensely-regulated years.
But even then, teams and drivers would stop at nothing to beat each other, it’s just that penalties hadn’t become one of the battlegrounds. This is all simply a case of varying manifestations of the same competitive instinct that burns brightly.
It’s down to every driver to decide where they draw the line, and no two will pick the same precise demarcation point between what is and isn’t legitimate. But you can be sure that, whether it’s 2021 or 1991, drivers will do everything they can to further their competitive cause.
And that’s why, even if you do favour light-touch stewarding that doesn’t penalise relatively minor infractions and only tackles extreme or dangerous moves, there need to be penalties in the first place.
What’s more, if it wasn’t penalties it would be something else. That’s just the nature of this intensity of competition.
