Max Verstappen and Lando Norris both went off track during their late-race squabble, but only the McLaren driver was penalised.
Max Verstappen’s uncanny ability to keep himself just within the letter of the regulations may be infuriating for his naysayers, but the championship leader is making the most of a laborious and clunky rulebook – one which wouldn’t have mattered much if a gravel trap existed at Turn 12 at COTA.
Why Lando Norris was penalised, and Max Verstappen wasn’t
For F1 2025, a more definitive set of racing guidelines is to be codified into the International Sporting Code but, for now, the FIA is already working to a set of guidelines that were drafted up over two years ago.
In the wake of the 2021 season, the FIA’s root-and-branch attempts to simplify and make transparent the rules to which all competitors are bound resulted in a ‘Driving Standards Guidelines’ document being put together.
These guidelines outline the general rules of engagement for how drivers may race each other – and it’s very clear that Max Verstappen is particularly au fait with how to exploit these rules.
The contentious moment of the United States Grand Prix was Verstappen’s defence against Lando Norris through Turn 12 – an incident that resulted in Norris being punished with a five-second time penalty for overtaking Verstappen by taking to the escape area after the Dutch driver impeded him being able to stick to the permitted track surface.
It was a slam-dunk penalty the moment Norris made the pass stick by staying off the track – there is a hard and fast rule that overtaking while off the track will merit a penalty. And McLaren‘s error of judgement was in not telling Norris to let Verstappen back past and try attacking again.
But Norris wasn’t the only one to go off the track through Turn 12 – Verstappen had also exceeded track limits whilst trying to hold back the McLaren. Why didn’t this factor be included in the equation?
Given that George Russell and Yuki Tsunoda had picked up a five-second time penalty for very similar incidents with Valtteri Bottas and Alex Albon, respectively, at the same corner earlier in the race, why wasn’t Verstappen punished for the same transgression, ie. pushing a driver off the track?
The answer lies in whether a driver is attacking or defending, which does change the rules of engagement significantly.
All professional racing drivers are aware that, when attempting to go around the outside of another, there is a very real risk of being run out of road. The more ruthless the driver, the greater the chance your route forward will be blocked – and no one would ever question Verstappen’s ruthlessness.
The guidelines dictate that, for an attacking driver attempting to overtake on the outside – including corner exit – their front axle must, at least, be alongside the front axle of the other car at the apex and at the exit.
Said driver must also be able to keep their car safe and controlled through entry, apex, and exit, and make the corner within track limits.
This left Norris at the mercy of Verstappen – as the defending driver, not attacking – who was able to simply dictate Norris running out of room through the exit. The British driver can’t just take to the escape area and claim to have been pushed off and his decision to continue the overtake on Verstappen resulted in him losing the theoretical high ground he gained by Verstappen running wide as well.
Verstappen’s transgression, which would have been seen as leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage (which would have been up for interpretation by the stewards, and could have triggered a penalty in itself) simply became a track limits warning the moment Norris did so.
“[Norris] was overtaking [Verstappen] on the outside, but was not level with [Verstappen] at the apex,” said the stewards of the incident in their awarding of a penalty to Norris.
“Therefore, under the Driving Standards Guidelines, [Norris] had lost the “right” to the corner.
“Accordingly, as Norris left the track and returned in front of Verstappen, it is deemed to be a case of leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage.”
So why then were Russell and Tsunoda, both of whom were on the inside of Turn 12 just like Verstappen, penalised with five-second penalties at the same corner?
There is a method to the madness – Russell and Tsunoda were the attacking drivers in that situation. According to the Guidelines, the overtaking driver is not allowed to force the other driver off the track and “must leave a fair and acceptable width” for their opponent. As this didn’t occur, Russell and Tsunoda were penalised.
As Verstappen was the defending driver, not the attacking – he isn’t bound to the same requirement to leave the room, meaning he went without punishment for, specifically, the offence of pushing Norris wide.
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How United States GP could have avoided bitter aftertaste
But there is an issue with these guidelines in that “being ahead at the apex” carries so much weight, and Verstappen, once again, judged this one well – carrying just enough speed to make it there in front of Norris and ensuring the British driver’s nose wasn’t ahead. It’s a trusty part of Verstappen’s repertoire – brake later, arrive at the apex first, and sort it all out later.
If the driver does that without the ability to stay on track, or with no intention of making the corner, is it a fair defence?
The way the rules are enforced by the stewards at present means this isn’t really a concern of Verstappen’s – he’s merely doing what the rules permit. Given the frequency with which he finds himself in these situations, usually escaping penalty, it shows the Dutch driver possesses a Sebastian Vettel-esque understanding of what’s allowed – this isn’t just pure luck.
For example, his aggression into Turn 1 on Lap 1, crowding Norris to the outside as he himself ran wide to the point of releasing Charles Leclerc into the lead. It’s far from the first time it’s happened at this exact corner – Lewis Hamilton pushed Verstappen wide in a similar move in 2021 and did the same to Nico Rosberg in 2015.
The simple answer is that on the first lap – rightly or wrongly – the stewards tend to look the other way for all but the most blatant of misdemeanours. Again, it’s a line against which Verstappen pushes up against, but doesn’t cross – had he done that move to Norris on any other lap of the race, he would have been penalised.
Of course, while there is a logic to these decisions, the United States Grand Prix did leave a bitter aftertaste – the battle between the two title protagonists had been simply electrifying up until the moment Norris overtook off track.
F1’s guidelines for racing, combined with the characteristics of the Circuit of the Americas, means that there is too much room for interpretation on how racing moves, whether offensive or defensive, are adjudged.
Both McLaren’s Zak Brown and Mercedes’ Toto Wolff were critical about “inconsistent” and “biased” stewarding after Norris and Russell received penalties – for the reasons outlined above – while Verstappen escaped any sort of penalty having committed the ‘same’ transgressions, albeit in circumstances where he’s ‘allowed’ to.
It can’t be argued that Norris did overtake while off the track, and Russell did crowd Bottas off the track while being the overtaking driver. Whether or not these penalties are fair or not is largely irrelevant – but it does bring into focus how the rulebook sometimes paints the stewards into a corner in apportioning blame for incidents. There is a logic, however flawed, for how these penalties were applied.
As for the guidelines themselves, a tighter definition of ‘being ahead at the apex’ is required. The apex itself is something of an intangible concept, given that different drivers take different lines, meaning it’s not a hard and fast physical location. Is simply braking later to ensure arrival at the ‘apex’ first in order to block your rival’s momentum acceptable racecraft? At present, it isn’t against the rules, but should the rules be altered to change that? Arguably, yes, but it’s not an easy rule to substantiate.
So let’s make it easy. If Turn 12 was lined by grass and gravel, rather than concrete, would Norris have kept the boot in to overtake Verstappen off track? Nope. Would Verstappen have braked at the point he did to ensure being ahead at the apex if he risked dipping a wheel or going off entirely on the grass/gravel on the exit as a consequence? Unlikely.
Now that some tracks are starting to realise the folly of having smooth surfaces everywhere, grass and gravel are starting to make a welcome comeback – and it’s high time COTA did the same. Of course, the argument against is that the circuit must be usable for motorbikes or track days outside of F1, but it’s a situation upon which the FIA and F1 should insist.
After all, the aforementioned racing guidelines become far, far easier to police if the drivers are bound by actual track limits. Had there been a nice big patch of grass behind the kerb at Turn 12, the thrilling battle in the closing stages of the race may have continued and been decided in a far more palatable fashion.
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