FIA race director Michael Masi has explained the key difference in the case of Max Verstappen’s pass on Charles Leclerc and why it wasn’t penalised.
The Dutchman placed his car up the inside of the Ferrari entering Turn 3 with two laps to go with the pair making wheel-to-wheel contact which pushed Leclerc off-track.
Following on from Sebastian Vettel in Montreal and Daniel Ricciardo in France, there was a sense of inevitability that somehow Verstappen would be punished too, but he wasn’t.
“The incident in Canada, Sebastian went across the grass and was in front, it wasn’t an overtaking manoeuvre,” Masi said via RaceFans.
“The one with Daniel, with particularly Lando, was very much about Daniel going off the track and rejoining.
“Whereas this here was both cars were on the track, it was an overtaking manoeuvre, so trying to compare the three of them, they are three very different incidents.
“From that end, it was an overtaking manoeuvre and as the stewards rightly pointed out in their view it was a racing incident and it was one of those.
“It was just good hard racing from the perspective that they saw.”
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Leclerc’s argument was that, on the lap before, Verstappen had left space to stop him bumping over the sausage kerb whereas that wasn’t the case on his eventual overtake.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner, while obviously not a neutral observer, believes the stewards got the decision right, however.
“It was fair racing, it was hard racing and it is what F1 should be,” he said. “If you look, he was ahead at the apex and then at that point, he has won the corner.
“It is for the other guy to back out of it and try the undercut, otherwise at that point, it is a slam dunk and checkmate he has got the corner.
“That is the way the stewards saw it.”
