Up Next
A rare one-place grid penalty for Formula 1 2024 champion Max Verstappen has promoted George Russell into Qatar Grand Prix pole instead.
Verstappen outpaced Russell by half a tenth but faced a post-session investigation relating to his approach to the lap right before his pole-clinching effort.
The Dutchman did just one run in Q3, but did two push laps on the same set of softs - those two push laps separated by two cooldown laps.
Three cars overtook him on that second cooldown lap, including that of pole rival Russell - who came up up right behind Verstappen with a huge speed difference through the right-handers in the final sector because he was gearing up to start a flying lap two corners later, and described it as "super dangerous" on the radio.
Red Bull publicly expected that Verstappen should be cleared of any wrongdoing given Russell wasn't on a true push lap, and indeed Verstappen - who himself claimed he was slow because he had been letting Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso past - was never investigated for impeding.
However, he was investigated for "driving unnecessarily slowly", with both he and Russell summoned to the race stewards.
The race director event notes maintain a maximum time between the track's safety car lines, which for this weekend has been set at 1m40s by new race director Rui Marques.
Russell said after qualifying that, in pushing on, he was trying to ensure he adheres to that delta time.
Two drivers - Yuki Tsunoda and Sergio Perez - received reprimands for breaching that delta time on Friday without having an adequate track position reason for it.
The stewards' verdict on Verstappen's breach read: "Car 1 [Verstappen] was on a different preparation strategy to that of Car 63 [Russell].
"Car 1 was well outside the delta and the driver of Car 1 explained he had let Cars 4 [Norris] and 14 [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 in that clearly Car 1 did not comply with the race director's event notes and clearly [Verstappen] 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."
The stewards saw the fact that Russell wasn't on a true push lap as simply "mitigation" rather than grounds to avoid issuing a penalty.
It means Verstappen has lost both pole positions he has taken since Austria in June, losing his top spot at Spa due to a 10-place engine penalty and now this one.
