Max Verstappen embarked upon the 2025 Formula 1 world championship with eight penalty points on his licence, already putting him two-thirds of the way towards an automatic race ban.
“He’s now on eight so we need to start being careful,” Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko acknowledged before the season began.
However Verstappen was untroubled by the possibility of reaching 12 points and triggering an automatic ban. “I won’t change my driving style because of that,” he said. “I know when I’ve gone too far.”
He stayed true to that over the first third of the season. But his bizarre manoeuvre on the 64th lap of the Spanish Grand Prix has left him on the brink of a ban. The stewards handed him three penalty points for colliding with George Russell, shortly after Verstappen had backed off to allow the Mercedes driver to overtake, on the advice of his team.
What exactly was Verstappen thinking? He was caught on the horns of a dilemma: He had stayed ahead of Russell by leaving the track at turn one three laps earlier, and his team felt he was at risk of a penalty if he didn’t give the place back. He was torn between following their advice and losing a place, or staying ahead and risking a penalty.
He chose to allow Russell alongside him at turn five, drove into the Mercedes, stayed ahead of him until turn 12, then let him past again. What was the goal behind this course of action?
Was Verstappen’s plan to damage Russell’s car, let him overtake, then take advantage of his loss of performance to re-pass him? That might be considered a cynical interpretation, but then it was a cynical move.
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The FIA stewards did not call it that, but they did call attention to the strangeness of Verstappen’s manoeuvre in their explanation for his penalty. “After car 63 [Russell] got ahead of car one [Verstappen] at the entry of turn five, car one suddenly accelerated and collided with car 63,” they noted, adding: “the collision was undoubtedly caused by the actions of car one.”
The facts of the situation are indisputable but the stewards’ interpretation of them overlooks an obvious point which should have been addressed: If, as they say, he was trying to let Russell past, why then drive into him and remain ahead for the next seven corners?
The stewards rushed to issue a decision in the aftermath of the race. Verstappen’s 10-second time penalty was announced while their cars were on their in-laps, mere minutes after contact was made. In their haste to announce a decision, the stewards did a half-job.
The most important question left unanswered was whether Verstappen deliberately collided with Russell. Many argued that Verstappen should be penalised more severely for causing deliberate contact.
“It felt very deliberate,” said Russell afterwards. “It is something I have seen numerous times in simracing and go-karts. I have never seen it in a Formula 1 race.” Did Verstappen deserve disqualification for the contact? “If it was truly deliberate then absolutely. Because you cannot deliberately crash into another driver. We are putting our lives on the line. We are fortunate the cars are as safe as they are these days but we shouldn’t take it for granted.”
The implications of contact between two F1 cars can be unpredictable. While the impact occured at relatively low speeds, Russell had no way of knowing what effect it could have had on his car.
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Verstappen hit the front-left wheel of Russell’s W16. This is the corner which sustains the highest loads around a lap of the Circuit de Catalunya, particularly at the high-speed turns three (taken at 215kph), nine (250kph) and 14 (265kph). Had the contact led to a failure at any of those corners, Russell could have suffered a heavy impact with a barrier.
Serious crashes can occur in motor racing when the drivers are competing in good faith and not seeking to cause contact. This is what makes deliberate contact entirely unacceptable and why Verstappen’s driving last weekend prompted such a strong reaction from so many.
Deliberate crashes are rare in F1, especially outside maximum-stakes occasions such as championship deciding races. The few occasions they have been prosecuted inevitably generated huge controversy, such as with Michael Schumacher in 1997 and again in 2006 (though more a ‘stoppage’ than a ‘crash’) and Nelson Piquet Jnr in 2008.
F1 stewards and even rival drivers and teams are understandably reluctant to accuse drivers of something so potentially serious. When Verstappen crashed heavily at Silverstone in 2021 following contact with Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull did not claim he deliberately hit their car.
However this is not the first time Verstappen has provoked or risked a collision with a rival and got off lightly. A similar situation occured at Jeddah in 2021, when Verstappen had been told to let his championship rival Lewis Hamilton past, and in the process of doing so brake-tested him. On that occasion he also received a 10-second time penalty.
That collision occured at the penultimate round of the championship, and ahead of the finale the race director took the rare step of reminding the competitors they could face points deductions for any “attempt to influence the result of a competition in a way that is contrary to sporting ethics.” The implication was clear: Neither driver should think they could win the title by taking their rival out.
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But this must not be an issue the stewards only take seriously when there’s a championship on the line. Distinguishing between ‘good faith’ and ‘bad faith’ collisions is seldom going to be easy and likely always going to prove contentious. But the risk of shying away from confronting these cases is encouraging more of them, not only at F1, but in all other echelons of motor racing.
Asked after Sunday’s race whether he intentionally hit Russell’s car, Verstappen replied: “Does it matter?” The FIA’s actions must leave him and everyone else in no doubt there is only one answer: “Yes.”
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