Max Verstappen loses pole with rare penalty for George Russell block

Max Verstappen has lost pole position at the F1 Qatar Grand Prix after being penalised for driving unnecessary slowly and blocking George Russell.

The newly-crowned four-time world champion was summoned to the Qatar stewards after he appeared to impede Russell at the triple right-hander of Turn 12-13-14 while on a slow lap before the final flying efforts of Q3.

Verstappen was deemed to have been in breach of F1’s regulations and has subsequently been hit with a one-place grid penalty, dropping him to P2 for Sunday's penultimate race of the season. 

The Dutchman had pipped Mercedes driver to the fastest time by just 0.055s to secure what appeared to be his first pole since the Austrian Grand Prix in June. But Verstappen’s ninth pole of the year has now been chalked off. 

The stewards' explanation 

"Car 1 was on a different preparation strategy to that of Car 63. Car 1 was well outside of the delta and the driver of Car 1 explained he had let Cars 4 and 14 past," the stewards said. 

"The driver of Car 63 claimed that he had adhered to the delta and did not expect Car 1 to be on the ra ing 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 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. 

"Unusually, this incident occurred when neither car was on a push lap. Had Car 63 been on a push lap, the penalty would have most likely been the usual 3 grid position penalty, however in mitigation of penalty, it was obvious that the driver of Car 63 had clear visibility of Car 1 and that neither car was on a push lap."

How the drivers reacted

After qualifying, Verstappen was quick to downplay the incident.

“There were two cars in front of me also making a gap, so I had to make a gap. I knew that everyone was on a slow lap, not on a push up,” he said.

"And then I think George got excited. He wanted to pass and get around. That's fine, I mean, everyone of course tries to get their position to have the best possible start to the lap.”

Russell, however, argued: "I was following my delta, and I didn't want to get penalised because we were told to follow the delta.”

He added: "I ended up going through the gravel all over the floor, so it felt like the floor was scraping over that curb and through the gravel.

"So I hope it didn't damage it. Maybe that's the reason why we didn't improve. I don't know. But it was a bit of a hairy one, two corners before we started the lap."