McLaren refused to take Lando Norris’ United States Grand Prix penalty lying down last week. They attempted to force the stewards to review their decision, but failed.
On race day, it was the turn of Norris’ championship rival Max Verstappen to feel the stewards’ wrath. He copped a penalty four times greater than the McLaren driver’s Austin sanction.
Verstappen’s Red Bull team were just as dismissive of the stewards’ decision as McLaren were a week earlier. But in this case, the Right of Review process appears to offer Red Bull less incentive to raise an objection than McLaren had in Austin. Indeed, McLaren may be the ones with most to gain from re-litigating last weekend’s race.
This has more to do with the timing of the penalties than what the drivers did on the track. The stewards handed Verstappen his pair of 10-second penalties early in Sunday’s race and he served them at his pit stop, so they cannot be undone. But Norris’ infringement occured much later in the United States Grand Prix, his penalty was added to his total race time, so it could have been cancelled out.
That doesn’t mean Red Bull have nothing to gain. The stewards gave Verstappen two penalty points on his licence for the clash with Norris at turn four, which means he is now halfway to an automatic ban. He will drop two after this weekend, but Verstappen knows he will have to keep getting his elbows out over the remaining five races (including sprint events), and being as far away from a ban as possible will give him more freedom to do as he likes without fear of the consequence.
Verstappen’s combined 20-second penalty is the second-largest any driver has received in a grand prix this year, after Kevin Magnussen’s double sanction in the Miami Grand Prix. So it may seem paradoxical to suggest McLaren might entertain the possibility of getting an even harsher one.
But this is where the specifics of the cases matter. One decision issued by the stewards on Sunday appears to present an opportunity for McLaren to push for a tougher penalty.
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McLaren are likely to be most satisfied with the stewards’ first ruling, regarding the initial incident at turn four. This was the decision issued and later recalled and revised by the stewards, after realising they originally failed to hand Verstappen any penalty…
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