Max Verstappen receiving a five-second penalty for his opening lap incident with Oscar Piastri became the major talking point of the Saudi Arabian GP. It was a classic case of the Dutchman’s car going off the track at turn 1 while trying to stay in the lead ahead of Piastri’s MCL39.
With the McLaren driver getting the better race start, he pulled ahead of pole-sitter Verstappen and was the first to make the apex at turn one. However, Verstappen braked as late as he could, ran wide, and held onto the lead. Since the stewards deemed that it was Piastri‘s corner and the #1 driver had gained an advantage by leaving the track, he was given the penalty.
Verstappen and Red Bull were unsurprisingly furious with it. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner came up with images after the race to make a case for why the Dutchman should not have earned the penalty, claiming that his car was ahead heading into the corner.
Several experts, however, had no concerns about the penalty but questioned if it was a bit lenient. One of them was Sky Sports’ Bernie Collins, who explained how most drivers are likely to gain far more in time than five seconds by simply holding on to the lead and driving in clean air as opposed to giving the place back.
“I question the five seconds,” she began by stating on Sky Sports’ The F1 Show podcast. Collins added, “If Verstappen’s car had been fast enough to drive off into the distance, the five seconds wasn’t equivalent to giving that place back”.
The photo that Christian Horner is using to show Red Bull’s belief that Max Verstappen was ahead of Oscar Piastri’s the apex at Turn 1 #F1 #SaudiArabianGP pic.twitter.com/nZC00jpyDK
— Chris Medland (@ChrisMedlandF1) April 20, 2025
Collins explained how on tracks such as Monaco and Singapore, where it is incredibly difficult to overtake, drivers would rather take a five-second penalty than cede their position to the trailing car, knowing that more often than not, they can build that much of an advantage in a race.
The former Aston Martin strategist added, “I do question the leniency,” as she could not understand the stewards’ justification that they did not give Verstappen a harsher penalty since it was a lap one incident.
In their statement, the stewards mentioned, “Ordinarily, the baseline penalty for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage is 10 seconds. However, given that this was lap one and turn one incident, we considered that to be a mitigating circumstance and imposed a 5-second time penalty instead”.
| Helmut Marko explains why Red Bull didn’t ask Max Verstappen to swap positions in Jeddah:
“There wasn’t much discussion on the radio about giving the position back to Piastri to avoid this penalty.”
“Our strategy expert and FIA contact had pointed out: We’ve seen several… pic.twitter.com/uA0glayJaN
— Fastest Pitstop (@FastestPitStop) April 24, 2025
Fellow expert Karun Chandhok, meanwhile, had a very simple solution for what decision the stewards should have made to avoid the controversy about the strictness of Verstappen’s penalty. “The most straightforward thing would have been for the stewards to just tell him to give the place back instead of getting involved with whether it should have been five or 10 seconds,” he explained.
With Piastri running just behind Verstappen after this incident during the first stint of the race, the stewards could have easily asked Red Bull to give the place back, as Chandhok suggested. He believes such a decision would have helped Piastri and Verstappen have a “normal race,” and few would’ve questioned the stewards’ decision.
In the end, though, it all worked out fine. Piastri ended up taking the race lead after the first round of pit stops, as Verstappen had to wait five extra seconds to serve his penalty. From that point on, the Australian controlled the race brilliantly and secured his third win of 2025, a victory that has helped him establish a 10-point lead in the standings.
