Since Formula 1 introduced its penalty points system in 2014, drivers have known they risk triggering an automatic one-race ban if they incur the stewards’ wrath too often.
But it took a decade for any driver to fall foul of the regulation. Last year Kevin Magnussen became the first F1 racer to hit the dreaded 12 points and trigger a ban.
Now Max Verstappen could be about to do the same. His lunge into George Russell’s car on Sunday, after backing off to let the Mercedes driver catch him, earned him three penalty points on his licence.
Verstappen was already on eight before the weekend began. He’s now on a total of 11. Like Magnussen at the time of his ban, Verstappen has incurred most of his penalty points for collisions with other drivers:
How Magnussen reached 12 penalty points
| Event | Session | Infringement | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabian GP | Grand prix | Collided with Alexander Albon | 3 |
| Chinese GP | Grand prix | Collided with Yuki Tsunoda | 2 |
| Miami GP | Sprint race | Leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage | 3 |
| Miami GP | Grand prix | Collided with Logan Sargeant | 2 |
| Italian GP | Grand prix | Collided with Pierre Gasly | 2 |
How Verstappen reached 11 penalty points
| Event | Session | Infringement | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austrian GP | Grand prix | Collided with Lando Norris | 2 |
| Mexican GP | Grand prix | Forced Lando Norris off the track | 2 |
| Brazilian GP | Sprint race | Drove too quickly under Virtual Safety Car | 1 |
| Qatar GP | Qualifying | Drove unnecessarily slowly on a cool-down lap | 1 |
| Abu Dhabi GP | Grand prix | Collided with Oscar Piastri | 2 |
| Spanish GP | Grand prix | Collided with George Russell | 3 |
On the face of it, Verstappen faces a serious threat of a penalty. He will contest the next two grands prix knowing that a single penalty point will mean a ban.
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He is due to deduct two points from his licence at the end of this month. But even if he keeps a clean licence between now and then, he will still have nine points to his name for at least another eight rounds, taking him up to the United States Grand Prix in late October.
But this is F1 in the Liberty Media era. The show trumps everything and Verstappen is a star draw. Would the series really exclude him from a round?
Under CEO Stefano Domenicali, sport ranks an increasingly distant second to entertainment in F1. This is the era of bonus points for special rounds designated as sprint events and arbitrary rule changes to ‘spice up the show’. Anyone who doesn’t think F1 will find a way to bend its rules to serve up a spectacle has forgotten how the 2021 season ended.
The Austrian Grand Prix at the end of this month is Red Bull’s home event and is invariably packed to capacity with orange-clad fans of F1’s reigning four-times champion. To suggest F1 would leave them with no Verstappen to cheer on merely because he strayed below the VSC delta time again at Montreal, for example, would surely be naive?
Perhaps, but this feels like a retreading of a past argument. Not long ago there was much scepticism the series would ever go so far as to ban any driver, let alone a multiple champion.
There was some justification for those suspicions. Pierre Gasly was remarkably fortunate to avoid a ban in early 2023. At the 2022 Mexican Grand Prix, Gasly incurred his 10th penalty point, and faced a nine-race stretch throughout which he risked a ban if he picked up two more. He avoided a ban during that spell despite facing further investigations.
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Gasly was especially fortunate at the following year’s Australian Grand Prix to avoid punishment for taking out another driver in what could have been considered a case of rejoining the track unsafely. Luckily for Gasly, the driver he tangled with was his own team mate, and the stewards accepted his assurances that the collision, which followed a lap 56 restart, should be regarded as a “first lap racing incident.”
Magnussen’s ban last year gave the lie to the idea that the stewards were too timid to let an F1 driver reach 12 points. But, with no disrespect to him, he was not one of the sport’s megastars. Verstappen is, and what’s more, he’s the only driver with a realistic chance of fighting the McLaren drivers for the title, even after his unfathomable act of self-sabotage on Sunday.
No doubt banning him would be a big story in the short-term. But Verstappen has repeatedly said he does not intend to have a long career and F1 will be wary of giving him more reasons to shorten it. His growing list of grievances with the series include the high demand on his time, the travel and the rules, on top of which his car is increasingly uncompetitive.
Would F1 contrive some way to avoid banning a front-running driver if it could? Recall the tale of the only F1 driver whose penalty points were ever rescinded, without them being cleared of an infringement. The driver in question had just hit double-digits on his penalty points tally and was at risk of triggering a ban. His name? Lewis Hamilton.
Verstappen can expect his driving to come under even fiercer scrutiny than before over the coming weekends. But if he does slip up again, the stewards’ reactions will be studied just as closely.
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