A Take On Overtakes!

Max Verstappen was penalised for an OVERTAKING MANOEUVRE, but some others got away scot-free. Why?

What a fairly dramatic and mad weekend it’s been. We had wet weather starting off on Friday and lots of stories in the paddock with Brendon Hartley making his debut, Carlos Sainz at Renault, and the possibility of Lewis Hamilton winning the World Championship.

Unlike my normal columns, we’re going to skip the guys in first and second and go straight to the debate for third place because Max Verstappen pulled off an amazing overtaking move on the final lap with two corners to go on Kimi Raikkonen. Obviously, he got a penalty and if you look at it as an individual case, Max had all four wheels over the white lines when he passed Kimi and that deserves a penalty — that’s a slam dunk — there’s no debate about that.

WHERE THE DEBATE and the issue lie is that there were several other instances during the race where drivers left the track and overtook and they weren’t penalised: Bottas in Turn 1, Sainz on the Force India as well. Technically Sainz left the track to set himself up for that move. Then there are also things through qualifying: at Turn 19 they all went off track and at Turn 9, the left-hander at the top of the hill, they’re all driving off track.

Fundamentally, if you’re going to turn a blind eye to these sort of things then you have to do it across the board; you can’t selectively penalise people, and I think that’s where the issue is.