Laurence Edmondson, F1 Editor
Max Verstappen has been stripped of his pole position at the Qatar Grand Prix after he was penalized one place on the grid for an incident in the final part of Saturday’s qualifying session.
The stewards’ decision means Mercedes driver George Russell will start from pole position for the second race weekend in a row, with Verstappen lining up second.
Verstappen was penalized for “driving unnecessarily slowly,” a breach of Article 33.4 of the sporting regulations, as he prepared for his pole position lap.
By driving slowly on the racing line, he forced Russell to take evasive action as the Mercedes driver also prepared for his final Q3 attempt.
Russell came across the slow-moving Red Bull in Turn 12 and dipped a wheel in one of the gravel strips as he adjusted his line to drive around the outside of Verstappen, who was on the racing line.
In order to prevent big speed differentials between cars in qualifying, the race director at each event sets a maximum lap time delta that drivers must remain within, which Verstappen had exceeded.
Neither driver was on their actual qualifying lap, but Russell was driving much faster than Verstappen in order to prepare his tires for his flying lap, while the Red Bull driver was attempting to cool his tires ahead of his run.
“Car 1 [Verstappen] was on a different preparation strategy to that of Car 63 [Russell],” the stewards said in a statement. “Car 1 was well outside of the delta and the driver of Car 1 explained he had let Cars 4 [Lando Norris] and 14 [Fernando Alonso] past.
“The driver of Car 63 claimed that he had adhered to the delta and did not expect Car 1 to be on the racing line. He stated that if a car was going slow in a high speed corner, it should not be on the racing line.
“The stewards regard this case as a complicated one,” the statement continued, “in that clearly Car 1 did not comply with the Race Director’s Event Notes and clearly was driving, in our determination, unnecessarily slowly considering the circumstances.
“It was obvious the driver of Car 1 was attempting to cool his tyres. He also could see Car 63 approaching as he looked in his mirror multiple times whilst on the small straight between Turns 11 and 12.
“Unusually, this incident occurred when neither car was on a push lap. Had Car 63 been on a push lap, the penalty would have most likely been the usual three grid position penalty, however in mitigation of penalty, it was obvious that the driver of Car 63 had clear visibility of Car 1 and that neither car was on a push lap.”
Speaking after the session, Russell suspected the incident may have cost him a shot at pole position.
“I ended up going through the gravel, all over the floor, through the floor,” he said after the session. “So it felt like the floor was scraping over that curb and through the gravel.
“So I hope it didn’t damage it. Maybe that’s the reason why we didn’t improve [on the final lap]. I don’t know.
“But it was a bit of a hairy one, two corners before we start the lap.”