{"id":39511,"date":"2025-04-21T23:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T23:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/39511\/"},"modified":"2025-04-21T23:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T23:00:10","slug":"the-penalty-max-verstappen-should-have-received-in-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/39511\/","title":{"rendered":"The penalty Max Verstappen should have received in Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Gian Carlo Minardi doesn\u2019t think Max Verstappen should have received a five-second penalty at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But he\u00a0does have a suggestion for the penalty the Red Bull driver should have received instead: a drive-through.<\/p>\n<p>Max Verstappen needed a drive-through penalty, says Minardi<\/p>\n<p>After an extremely difficult weekend in Bahrain, Max Verstappen once again illustrated why many Formula 1 fans consider him one of the all-time greats due to his performance at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>While Red Bull Racing wasn\u2019t convinced it had the long-run pace to battle McLaren, it was confident in its speed over one lap, and that panned out in qualifying when the four-time champion snatched pole position from Oscar Piastri by just a hair.<\/p>\n<p>But on race day, Verstappen still proved to have strong pace. He led the race up to the first pit stop and crossed the line in second place.<\/p>\n<p>More analysis from the Saudi Arabian GP:<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udc49\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetf1.com\/features\/2025-saudi-arabian-gp-driver-ratings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Saudi Arabian GP driver ratings: Piastri reward for elbows out, Hamilton sinks again<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udc49 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetf1.com\/features\/saudi-arabian-grand-prix-2025-conclusions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Saudi GP conclusions: Hamilton issues diagnosed as Piastri puts Norris in corner<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The reigning champion may very well have had a chance to compete for a win, though, had it not been for his penalty.<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen and second-placed starter Oscar Piastri were neck-and-neck drag racing through the first corners, both drivers desperate to snatch the lead.<\/p>\n<p>As they rounded into Turn 2, Piastri maintained an aggressive line while Verstappen dived up the inside in a bid to take away the McLaren\u2019s advantage. He ran off the track as he did so, and took the lead after cutting Turn 2 almost entirely.<\/p>\n<p>The stewards determined that Piastri had the corner, and that Verstappen was in the wrong, issuing him a five-second penalty.<\/p>\n<p>But that penalty wasn\u2019t enough, says Gian Carlo Minardi, former owner of his eponymous Formula 1 team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do not agree with the penalty,\u201d Minardi wrote in The Point, a Formula column.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe that 5 [seconds] are too few considering the advantage obtained by his action and also because they came at the start of the race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe had plenty of time to recover, crossing the finish line in second place, little more than 2 [seconds] from the Australian.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA drive-through would have been more consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Drive-through penalties mean that drivers have to drive through the pit road at the assigned speed limit and can rejoin the race after doing so. These penalties have largely been assigned for race start, pit speed, or pit exit infractions, though there are no formal guidelines dictating the penalties required in certain situations.<\/p>\n<p>Read next:\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetf1.com\/news\/max-verstappen-people-cant-handle-truth-fia-saudi-arabia-gp-penalty-snub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Max Verstappen claims \u2018people can\u2019t handle truth\u2019 after FIA penalty snub<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gian Carlo Minardi doesn\u2019t think Max Verstappen should have received a five-second penalty at the Saudi Arabian Grand&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,225,12,226,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-39511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-home-page","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-red-bull","12":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114378442309369299","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}