Despite crossing the finish line third in Saturday’s “tricky” São Paulo Grand Prix sprint race, two places behind Lando Norris, his closest rival in the 2024 World Drivers’ Championship, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen appeared encouraged by the “very good” pace of his RB20.
“It was quite a tricky race, but I think the pace was very good because we could always follow within the DRS and yeah, I’m quite pleased with that.”
Despite acknowledging that he had spent more time than desired behind Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, Verstappen claimed that his pace had allowed him to keep up with the Leclerc, and ultimately, capitalize on “some mistakes” to get ahead of the Ferrari driver.
“Of course, it took a bit too long with Charles but when everyone is in the DRS train, it’s very hard to attack. So, I had to wait for some mistakes and luckily they came, and I could use that to my advantage.”
He described his pace as “promising” but stated that it was no guarantee for a good performance in Sunday’s race as many unknown factors, including the weather, could come into play.
“And yeah, it was promising, you know. It was good.
“Of course, this is race pace. Tomorrow it might rain as well so there’s a lot of unknowns but today was good.”
While he admitted that he expected his rivals to be “really quick over one lap” during the afternoon’s qualifying session, Verstappen stated that he hoped that the good pace of his RB20 would help him “limit the damage” of the five-place grid penalty that he will face for exceeding his yearly allocation of internal combustion engines.
“I mean, I still expect them to be really quick over one lap, but I hope we can limit the damage a bit with, of course, the five-place grid penalty I have.”
However, despite finishing over four seconds ahead of Leclerc, Verstappen’s P3 position soon came under threat, after he was summoned to the stewards for allegedly “failing to stay above the minimum time set by the FIA ECU during the [Virtual Safety Car] ending” in the final lap of the race – a breach of Article 56.6 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations.
The investigation comes after an incident between Verstappen and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in the penultimate lap of the sprint race, which saw the Red Bull driver significantly close the gap between them under the VSC conditions. Though Verstappen would fall back to avoid contact with Piastri and in an attempt to avoid breaching the regulations associated with racing under the VSC conditions, the incident was noted by the stewards who ultimately opted to continue their investigation after the race.
While Verstappen himself did not speak of the investigation, his Team Principal, Christian Horner address the matter while speaking after the race. While Horner stated that the team, from their perspective and data, did not believe Verstappen to have been in violation of any rules, he added that they were waiting to hear the outcome of the stewards’ investigation.
“Look, on everything that we can see, it looks okay, but you know let’s see.”
Horner also addressed Verstappen’s radio message to the team under the VSC conditions in which the driver had requested that the team look into the pace of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. The Red Bull boss stated that Verstappen’s concerns had been “just conscious” that there hadn’t been a suitable gap between himself and Piastri and had wanted to ensure that Piastri had not deliberately been “dropping back” from his teammate Norris.
“He was just conscious that there wasn’t a gap, that Oscar wasn’t dropping back from Lando. So, you know, obviously reading the race, looking at all the permeabilities so.”
On reflection of the race, Horner stated that the team had been most encouraged by Verstappen’s race, which he described as “decent” as it had allowed Verstappen to keep pace with, and eventually overtake Leclerc.”
“I think the most encouraging thing in that race for us was the race pace. [It] was, you know, decent to stick on the tail for 24 laps, [to] pass Charles.
“You know, that was encouraging.”
When asked what could account for the improved race pace, Horner replied, “Yeah, I think that there’s some things that we’re starting to understand.”
Around 85 minutes before Grand Prix qualifying, it was confirmed that Max Verstappen picked up a 5-second penalty for gaining an advantage under VSC conditions.
“Article 56.5 states in part ‘All cars must also be above this minimum time when the FIA light panels change to green.’ The driver was 0.63 seconds below the minimum time at VSC End when the FIA light panels changed to green. This indicates a sporting advantage gained under VSC.
“The driver explained that as he was awaiting VSC to end and he got the notification that he was below the minimum time, he attempted to correct the error but failed to do so by the point that the panels turned green.
“This is a breach and the standard penalty is applied for the advantage gained at that time. The net effect of this put the driver ahead of where he was at the start of the VSC and not as a result of the car in front falling back.”
