Max Verstappen disagrees with George Russell’s assessment of Fernando Alonso’s penalties in Jeddah being “too extreme,”
Max Verstappen has shared his opinion on Fernando Alonso's penalties from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
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Max Verstappen and George Russell
Fernando Alonso had a pretty torrid time in Saudi Arabia despite finishing on the podium. George Russell, who was promoted to P3 initially, deemed the Spaniard’s penalties pretty harsh. However, Max Verstappen holds an opposite view on the whole Alonso saga from the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The Dutchman believes that penalties are what keeps the sport in check.
Fernando Alonso was at the center of a huge mess by the FIA Stewards in Jeddah. Firstly, he was given a 5-second penalty for being too far left on his grid slot, and then when he came into the pits to serve his penalty, no action was taken, it was later on in the race that it found out that Alonso was given another 10-second penalty for incorrectly serving his initial penalty.
All of this demoted the 41-year-old to P4, but this was not the end of the saga. After a while, the FIA again burst into action and reinstated him to P3 in the final standings of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. While George, after the race, felt that the penalties were very harsh, Max Verstappen, while talking about them, said, “It’s painful when this happens, but it’s the same with the white line for track limits.“
“Sometimes you argue: did you gain anything going wide or not, going outside of it? I think at one point we do need a rule. It looks really silly if people start to take advantage of going really left and right.” Max Verstappen, on the one hand, has sympathized with Alonso but, on the other, has admitted that rules are essential in a sport like F1.
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Max Verstappen has been, on previous occasions, stripped of podium finishes
While Max Verstappen has stressed the importance of rules in F1, some of his comments in Jeddah, could have been fueled by how he’s been treated in the past. There have been a few instances in Verstappen’s career, where he was at the last moment stripped of his podium place finishes. One such incident took place in 2019 during the Monaco GP, where he was penalized late, and that cost him a podium. A 5-second penalty was imposed on the Dutchman because Red Bull released one of its crew members into the path of Valtteri Bottas’s Mercedes during his pitstop.
His Mercedes rival George Russell does not share the same line of thought. While stressing about Alonso’s saga, he said, “I feel like some of these penalties have been a little bit too extreme, I think a little bit of common sense needs to be shown. I think he (Alonso) was a bit to the left (at the start) …he gained nothing from this. Perhaps a five-second (penalty) is too much. And then with regard to his pitstop… a 10-second (penalty) is too extreme in that case again.” Looking at the comments of both Verstappen and Russell, it is pretty clear that they hold opposite views on the Alonso situation.
F1 is an unpredictable sport where anything could happen at any moment. Moreover, when something unprecedented occurs, the FIA has often failed to make the right decisions. Such things have happened too often in recent seasons, and the hierarchy of the organization needs to have a serious look at its rule book. As the sport evolves, the rules also need to evolve. Otherwise, confusion ensues.
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