Christian Horner taunts Max Verstappen with last years Qatar’s incident during FP3 of the Belgian Grand Prix.
Verstappen is one of the seven drivers who will be given a grid penalty for taking new power unit components and one of the six drivers that received “back-of-the-grid” punishments.
But during the third free practice of the Belgian Grand Prix, the Red Bull driver feared yet another grid penalty.
The reigning world champion bagged a last-minute second position during Saturday’s free practice with his teammate taking a 0.137s lead on him.
Taking the fuel out of his Red Bull, the dutch driver put on a new set of soft tires, looking promising to go fastest of all only to stay 12th after locking up into the Bus Stop chicane. And only moments later, Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly run wide through Blanchimont resulting in yellow flags.
It was difficult to see on the television images and was probably even worse from Verstappen’s cockpit. Indeed, the Dutchman did miss a yellow flag that was hanging.
This incident might have resulted in a grid penalty of three places since according to the race director’s notes, drivers “must reduce speed significantly and be prepared to change direction or stop” in response to yellow flags.
This was when Red Bull team principal Christian Horner alerted him about it over the team radio, saying “You just drove through yellow flags.” Verstappen said: “Those weren’t there.“ To which Horner responded wittily while looking back to last year, saying “No, they weren’t there in Qatar either.”
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What happened in Qatar last year?
Last year in November, during the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix, a tense legal drama Max Verstappen was summoned to the stewards.
The Red Bull driver had set a second-place qualifying time at the Losail circuit on Sunday, 0.455 seconds behind pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton. He was due to line up alongside his championship rival on the front row of the grid for Sunday’s race.
But just two hours before the race, he was given a five-place grid penalty for ignoring and failing to slow down for double waved yellow flags.
Onboard footage from Verstappen’s car showed a double-waved yellow flag on the left-hand side of the track, but Verstappen did not seem to lift.
This ended in Verstappen receiving a five-place grid penalty, ultimately moving the Dutchman down to seventh on the grid for the Qatar Grand Prix.
Nonetheless, race control has now decided not to take further action against the Dutchman for the incident in FP3.
Verstappen will not be penalized for the yellow flag incident. As it appears that he actually braked in time to avoid it after all.
Irrespective of the lock-up and yellow flags. Verstappen did improve down to a 1m45.184s second place across the line; thanks to his work in sectors two and three. But his grid penalties will see him start the race from 15th place.
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