Former team boss Günther Steiner is puzzled by the stewards’ ambiguity regarding Max Verstappen‘s time penalty in Jeddah. The ex-Haas team boss disagrees with the penalty imposed on the Dutch driver, but advises the stewards that if a penalty must be given, they should simply stick to their guns.
The most controversial moment during the Saudi Arabian GP was Max Verstappen‘s time penalty after the opening battle with Oscar Piastri. The Dutchman received a five-second penalty for ‘leaving the track and gaining an advantage’, after he encountered the Australian in turn 1. Verstappen disagreed with the penalty after the race, but refrained from making a big fuss about it.
The stewards gave Verstappen a less severe penalty than the standard ten-second time penalty for the offence, because the incident occurred in the first lap. Odd, thinks former team boss Günther Steiner, who labels the penalty for the four-time world champion as unjust. “The stewards always try to remain polite. They don’t want to upset anyone,” Steiner said in the Red Flags podcast.
Opaque Stewards
The Italian then makes an unusual comparison. “When a judge gives someone a life sentence, without the possibility of early release, he knows that the person will not be happy. But that’s just the job of the judge,” explains the South Tyrolean. Therefore, Steiner does not understand why the stewards do not stick to their guns. “If Verstappen indeed did something wrong according to the stewards, they should just give him the ten-second penalty, end of story. Now everything is so unclear again.”
