Max Verstappen will start the Mexican Grand Prix from second place after the stewards took no further action from investigating his incident with Valtteri Bottas.
Verstappen was investigated after Bottas locked up and ran wide on his first flying lap in Q3 after passing the Red Bull driver – who was off line – on the run to Turn 13.
Despite Bottas’s claims that Verstappen ‘ruined’ his lap, the stewards determined that there had been no such impediment on the part of the Red Bull.
The stewards’ ruling is as follows:
The Stewards examined multiple angles of video evidence and radio calls to car 33 and heard from Max Verstappen, the driver of car 33, Valtteri Bottas, the driver of car 77 and the team representatives.
The driver of car 33 was clearly aware from the team radio and using his mirrors that car 77 was approaching on a hot lap. He moved from the racing line on the exit of turn 12 to avoid impeding to car 77. The driver of car 33 did move slowly from the racing line which could have affected car 77, but the Stewards do not consider this as impeding.
The decision will no doubt come as a relief to Verstappen, who became the centre of controversy following his final lap penalty for passing Kimi Raikkonen outside of track limits in last weekend’s United States Grand Prix.
2017 Mexican Grand Prix
- 2017 Mexican Grand Prix team radio transcript
- 2017 Mexican Grand Prix Predictions Championship results
- 2017 Mexican Grand Prix weekend Star Performers
- ‘Race director, look at the race please’: Mexican GP team radio highlights
- Rosberg has third-shortest reign as champion after Hamilton win
Frederick Mann (@myst)
28th October 2017, 21:51
Hamilton gained 1.5 second within one lap after he overtook Vettel in Austin.
But everyone was talking about an illegal overtake which happened and was punished so many times in the past.
This time the decission is right, although, it wasn’t good for Bottas. He had only one hot lap.
dusty (@dusty)
28th October 2017, 22:07
What do you expect people to talk about regarding Hamilton gaining 1.5s over a car with bad tires struggling to keep up while driving through dirt air?
Frederick Mann (@myst)
28th October 2017, 22:29
Rosberg, Hamilton did that in the past. For four years. Pressing a button before and after a pit stop and to get out of DRS.
Pay attention. Thank you.
Frederick Mann (@myst)
28th October 2017, 22:34
Bottas did that too. In Sochi for example. But then… the mappings changed.
Neil (@neilosjames)
28th October 2017, 22:46
Regarding that particular overtake, the only timing difference was that Vettel was 2.2 seconds slower on that lap than he was the lap before. Hamilton’s pace remained pretty constant.
Anon
29th October 2017, 9:00
As you say, it wasn’t a case of Hamilton going fast, it was the case that Vettel’s had an abnormally slow lap. For somebody who is arrogantly telling others to ‘pay attention’, he has rather obviously not bothered to check Vettel’s relative performance on those laps and gone to his instinctive prejudice to attack Hamilton, rather than checking whether or not Vettel’s performance had changed.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
29th October 2017, 0:35
I’m sure this is somehow relevant to the claim Verstappen impeded Bottas’ attempt to get a good Qualifying 3 time, but I can’t see it.
Do we have to keep talking about Verstappen’s pass on Raikkonen? Max has issued an apology for what he’d said, shouldn’t that be the end of the matter?
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
29th October 2017, 18:21
@myst “This time the decision is right.” It’s not right, Max was on the racing line, he should have been penalized, he couldn’t get away from cutting a corner but he got away of this.
Swanson
28th October 2017, 22:00
Anyone else find it strange that verstappen finds HimSelf in some sort of situation almost every race- it seems to be past the point of coincidence
Bart
28th October 2017, 22:11
Not a coincidence indeed. Anyone else has a point here. It is strange.
Most of the drivers never experience any sort of situation. They just happily drive around in a cloud of nothingness. Only Max has the occasional technical failures, torpedo attacks, sandwich linings etc.
But that is not his fault.
Frederick Mann (@myst)
28th October 2017, 22:31
“But that is not his fault.”
Why?
Paul A (@paul-a)
28th October 2017, 23:32
Why? Because he’s only just out of his teens and is “mixing it up” with World Champions. Vettel (4xWC) only just pipped him, Hamilton, Raikonnen and Alonso were behind him. Arguably this year the pecking order is Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull. Verstappen might therefore be considered as either 5th or 6th in the pecking order, but he leaves his team mate in the dust and nearly gets pole.
My opinion: this is what F1 truly should be. We, the fans, should be happy to see it. Mercedes can whinge, hoping to get bureaucratic redress, but that’s not sportsmanship (one of the reasons that I haven’t owned a Merc since 1962 and have no intention of buying one now.)
Bram (@br444m)
28th October 2017, 23:25
He races on the limit and shakes up the establishment. Historically, all the greats in F1 have stirred things up.
erikje
28th October 2017, 23:35
Not sure if that’s completely true. Lots of drivers face a investigation during FP and Quali for blocking another driver. Most of these cases stay under the radar. But at the moment VER is hot for the media, hence the interest in him.
And of course he is shaking up F1 in a way new for many viewers. Rules have to rewritten, not because he brakes them, but because they do not fit this F1 any more.
look here for a exmaple: https://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-one-world-championship/season-2015/event-timing-information-3
BaKano (@bakano)
28th October 2017, 22:20
Correct decision. It is true that Bottas was affected by Max’s presence BUT he was off the racing line and he cannot just disappear! Bad luck that Bottas got him on that point of the circuit.
And last weekend there was a driver that tried to get away when notified (Stroll) and got penalized because the other car was taking the same evasive maneuver!
So, bad luck for Bottas that he did get affected but a driver is in his right to go slower and if he is off the racing line there’s not much he can do. And once he was going slow on that section what other action he could have taken could be worse: if he braked harder Bottas would catch him more quickly and could even crash into him, and if he accelerated a bit to “get away” he could then be in the way at the entrance of the corner.
erikje
28th October 2017, 23:55
The “bad” thing is that Bottas almost asked for a penalty. He obviously had some frustrations and a penalty for VER seems appropriated for him.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
29th October 2017, 1:04
I don’t see it as “bad” or in poor taste because Bottas’ hot lap was ruined, or at least appeared to have been affected. As BaKano (@bakano) said, Verstappen “cannot just disappear! Bad luck that Bottas got him on that point of the circuit.” By the time Verstappen saw Bottas it was too late for him to make a decision about how to avoid impeding Bottas. He had to make a decision based on communication over the RT and what he’d seen in his mirrors before he went around the corner.
One of the facts about driving is there’s no Backspace Key. It’s not like typeing … opps I mean typing, where you can just go and press that key and the mistakes you made just vanish. The same applies here: Max appears to be already trying to avoid impeding Bottas when Bottas came around the corner and found him in a slightly awkward place. The Stewards looked into the matter and, thankfully, said it didn’t deserve any further action.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
28th October 2017, 23:59
The thing is, Bottas did have to take a little bit of avoiding action earlier than he would have had to if Verstappen hadn’t been going as slow. It will have been better if Verstappen had kept a little more speed so Bottas could get past a fraction later without having to affect his line as much. Verstappen could have done better, but not worth of a penalty.
Henrik
29th October 2017, 6:35
More speed and he would’ve blocked the corner.
Frederick Mann (@myst)
28th October 2017, 23:51
Thank you for agreeing with me.
That’s what I said. And everybody else since 2014.
KaIIe (@kaiie)
29th October 2017, 6:34
Correct decision, even though Bottas lost a hot lap due to it. It was one of those things that just happen; Verstappen was slightly at fault (had he been 5 or 10 metres further up the road there wouldn’t have been any problem) but definitely not enough to warrant a penalty in my opinion.
Jere (@jerejj)
29th October 2017, 7:16
Correct decision.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
29th October 2017, 9:22
Probably a Mercedes team decision to pursue a penalty – it would have moved Hamilton up to the front row as well as assisting Bottas.
Verstappen did what he could to stay out of the way. You can’t expect him to drive off the track completely! Especially if he just got clobbered for doing that last weekend…
Bram (@br444m)
29th October 2017, 10:35
Hehe, that made me laugh. The kid can’t do much good these days can he!