How Mexico penalties finally set the right standard for punishing Verstappen's tactics

OPINION: Max Verstappen and Lando Norris clashed yet again in Mexico City – this time with the 2024 Formula 1 points leader notably punished. And while the Red Bull driver won’t change his approach for the season run-in, it’s vital for the championship’s sporting sanctity that such calls are preserved for the inevitable next bout

Here we go again. There’s still a sprint and a grand prix left in Formula 1’s penultimate triple-header of the year for things to get ugly at least a third time in this run between 2024 title contenders Max Verstappen and Lando Norris and up next after Brazil is Sin City…

Given last Saturday’s news that the FIA is open to altering F1’s racing guidelines – the topic of the Mexico event’s build-up – there had been relief in some quarters of the F1 paddock.

The hope is that this willingness to engage on racing rules, and fast, might finally stamp out Verstappen's cynical professional foul tactic.

This was in action at Turn 4 of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on lap 10 of last weekend’s Mexico Grand Prix. Again it – and the even worse move a few seconds later at Turn 7 – eclipses a famous Ferrari win. But Fred Vasseur and co are actually gleeful that the focus keeps falling elsewhere, while the Scuderia concentrates on notching up wins.

This time, after the ruling on the Verstappen/Norris Austin Turn 12 clash had been botched by their predecessors, the Mexico stewards penalised the world champion for doing yet another ‘turning-defence-into-attack’ move - this one sent Norris off across the Turn 4 grass - and they did so with a 10-second penalty, with another soon to follow.

On Turn 4 alone, this sets a strong precedent the stewards at the upcoming Brazilian and Las Vegas races must heed.

On the specifics of the 10s penalty, FIA sources explained in the Mexico paddock that this is actually the standard sanction for such a transgression per the penalty range guidelines given to the stewards.

Yet Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko claimed “it's a reaction to all the incidents that took place in Austin” – the combination of Verstappen’s total penalty count at play.

But the explanation of why this was objectively harsher than Norris’s five-second penalty for overtaking outside track limits in that Austin clash is because there the stewards are understood to have applied mitigating circumstances from Verstappen’s apex diving.

This time, with no doubt Norris was ahead at the apex of Turn 4, Verstappen still shoved him wide.

Post-race, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner offered more deflection defence. He claimed Norris was “15km/h faster and later on the brakes than his fastest lap” and “wouldn't have made the corner” and presented a print off of GPS traces of Norris’s quickest lap of the race, overlaid with those from the clash with Verstappen.

"Can the rules be better? Maybe yes, maybe not. It's always the same thing. I just drive how I think I have to drive" Max Verstappen

“He would’ve run off track,” Horner added. “You can see from his onboard steering and of course, at this point in the race, he's got probably 80kg more fuel than at the point that he's done his done his fastest lap [on lap 68, when Norris didn’t have DRS as he did when attacking Verstappen].”

But not only is Norris’s trajectory from his onboard feed indicating he would have made the corner had he not been forced off, the GPS trace data Autosport has seen of other Norris laps skews Horner’s braking point claim because Norris braked not much later than he did on either the preceding lap nine or lap 11 afterwards and in both those cases made the corner.

He did, it should be noted, apply no lift and coast in the clash with Verstappen – slamming on the brakes as soon as he released the throttle as Turn 4 approached and, as with the Austin incident, Verstappen seemed to release the throttle differently to other laps rather than releasing his brakes. His dab of right-hand down was what put Norris on the grass.

Post-race, having looked pretty chilled as he waited for space to open up in the written media pen area of the paddock – smiling and joking with a Red Bull press officer – Verstappen then gave rather clipped answers to questions from the scrum of journalists.

Here, Verstappen pointed out inconsistency in stewarding decisions from the last two weekends.

“At the end of the day, everyone speaks for themselves,” Verstappen said. “Can the rules be better? Maybe yes, maybe not. It's always the same thing. I just drive how I think I have to drive. Last week that was all right, this week, 20-second penalty. That's what it is. Life goes on.”

And he's right – although only because the outcome was wrong in Austin. There, either Verstappen should have been sanctioned for forcing Norris off or no penalty handed to the McLaren driver. But, given the rules on overtaking off track are clearer, a suggestion that both being punished was the better Austin outcome came up time and again in the paddock in Mexico.

That inconsistency is precisely why it's so important to draw a new line here – before the Qatar round in early December post-Interlagos and Vegas. This is where the FIA’s racing guidelines changes will be presented to the drivers again.

Given GPDA director George Russell claimed that “19 out of 20 [drivers], we're all aligned on where it needs to be”, surely these will go through with the drivers’ body’s seal of approval.

He may still have a 47-point buffer over Norris, but Sunday’s action indicated that Verstappen won't stop racing Norris that hard.

While that was of little doubt, the more worrying element was how Horner suggested Verstappen’s reaction to 'clash one' with Norris caused the second penalised incident.

“I think that was the frustration of potentially Lando not giving back the place,” he said. “Things, they only escalate.”

Well, they just shouldn’t and the Turn 7 clash was an even more egregious move, with Norris correct to call Verstappen out as “dangerous”.

So, to Brazil, with the spectre of Verstappen’s bitter 2021 race there with Hamilton having risen and hovering over the current title battle

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella revealed afterwards that the team has told Norris it approves and “confirm the way you go racing – it is not for you to go there and find justice yourself – you go racing in a fair, sportive way”.

Even Verstappen offered little defence of his second attack – saying only “Turn 7 is what it is”. This speaks volumes.

And so, to Brazil, with the spectre of Verstappen’s bitter 2021 race there with Hamilton having risen and hovering over the current title battle.

The debate over such moves will inevitably rumble on. But a line has been drawn here in Mexico and it is critical to F1’s future sporting health that it is preserved.