The newly crowned four-time world champion Max Verstappen won’t start on pole after setting the fastest time during Saturday’s final qualifying session for the Qatar Grand Prix.
The Qatar Grand Prix pole position has been taken away from Max Verstappen.
Despite having the most time on the clock, the Dutchman was being investigated for allegedly obstructing George Russell. He was “driving unnecessarily slowly” in front of the Mercedes driver, according to the stewards’ recent ruling.
Verstappen has been given a one-place grid penalty as a result. Russell will now start ahead of the Red Bull racer after inheriting pole position. Additionally, Verstappen’s racing license now has one penalty point added.
The stewards wrote the following to justify their choice: “Car 63 [Russell] was using a different preparation strategy than Car 1 [Verstappen].” The driver of Car 1 explained that he had allowed Cars 4 [Lando Norris] and 14 [Fernando Alonso] to pass him because Car 1 was well outside the delta.
“The driver of Car 63 stated that he did not anticipate Car 1 being on the racing line and that he had followed the delta. He said that in a high-speed corner, if a car was moving slowly,
“The stewards view this case as complex because it is evident that Car 1 did not follow the Race Director’s Event Notes and that, in our opinion, it was driving excessively slowly given the situation.
“The driver of Car 1 was clearly trying to cool his tires. As he repeatedly checked his mirror while driving on the narrow straight between Turns 11 and 12, he could also see Car 63 approaching.
This incident happened when neither car was on a push lap, which is unusual. The penalty would have probably been the standard three-grid position penalty if Car 63 had been on a push lap, but it was clear that Car 1 was not on a push lap and that Car 63’s driver had unobstructed vision of it.
Verstappen had been thrilled with the speed he found in his Red Bull during qualifying before the penalty. He had lost a number of spots on the first lap of the sprint earlier in the day and had found it difficult to move forward.
“It’s a crazy turnaround,” the Dutchman said after securing what he believed to be pole position. That was unexpected. Bravo to the team for providing me with a more connected vehicle. Although we made some changes to the car, I never imagined that the performance would change so drastically. I hope it continues into the race because that is encouraging.
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