During the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix, Max Verstappen had a controversial incident with George Russell, which saw him get penalised with a 10-second penalty. But after the race ended, Verstappen met with the stewards, where he received even more bad news.
During the final 10 laps of the Spanish GP, the entire field was brought together thanks to a safety car. During the restart, Verstappen immediately lost position to Charles Leclerc. He nearly lost another position to Russell until the 2 cars had contact, forcing Verstappen off the track, where he took the run-off path and came out ahead of Russell.
In fear of receiving a penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, Red Bull asked their driver to give the position to Russell. Verstappen decided to do so just ahead of turn 5. Just after letting him through, Verstappen accelerated and went straight into the side of Russell. For this incident, the Stewards decided to penalise him with 3 penalty points.
Max Verstappen in risk of a race ban following the Spanish Grand Prix
After the 3 penalty points, Max Verstappen has increased his total to 11 penalty points within 12 months. If he gains another penalty point, the Dutch driver will be disqualified from the next race.
His first penalty point of the current cycle was acquired on June 30th, where he got 2 penalty points for an incident at the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix for his incident with Lando Norris.
🚨| Max Verstappen receives THREE PENALTY POINTS for his collision with George Russell in turn 5!
This puts him on 11 out of 12 for a race ban!#F1 #SpanishGP https://t.co/2OEZR5Na5L
— Fastest Pitstop (@FastestPitStop) June 1, 2025
Given that there are 2 more races before June 30th of this year, Verstappen should take extra care to avoid a race ban. Right now, Verstappen is in the middle of a Championship fight with both McLaren drivers. With the 10-second penalty at the Spanish Grand Prix dropping him from 5th to 10th, he has a lot of ground to make up for in the coming races.
Next up, we have the Canadian Grand Prix, following which, we head to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. But the fact remains that even after these 2 races, Verstappen will continue to be at risk of a race ban as he will still be only 3 points short. His next pair of penalty points will expire on October 27th, which is a long time for Verstappen to be incident-free.
Red Bull’s team orders to Verstappen were unnecessary
After the race, there were a lot of pundits suggesting that Verstappen did not have to give up his position to Russell. This was later proven by the race stewards themselves when they released a statement on Verstappen’s penalty.
The statement read: “From the radio communications, it was clear that the driver of Car 1 was asked by his team to ‘give the position back’ to Car 63 for what they perceived to be an earlier breach by Car 1 for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage (in fact, we had later determined that we would take no further action in relation to that incident).”
🚨|Max Verstappen is cleared from the turn 1 incident on the restart with Russell.
He might still be penalized further over the turn 5 incident though!#F1 #SpanishGP https://t.co/KT6gKYCaff
— Fastest Pitstop (@FastestPitStop) June 1, 2025
“The driver of Car 1 was clearly unhappy with his team’s request to give the position back. At the approach to Turn 5, Car 1 significantly reduced its speed, thereby appearing to allow Car 63 to overtake. “
“However, after Car 63 got ahead of Car 1 at the entry of Turn 5, Car 1 suddenly accelerated and collided with Car 63. The collision was undoubtedly caused by the actions of Car 1. We therefore imposed a 10-second time penalty on Car 1.”
Do you think Verstappen will be able to stay clean in the coming races to avoid a race ban? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.
