Verstappen hit with late Qatar Grand Prix penalty

Max Verstappen has been demoted on the grid for Sunday's Qatar Grand Prix, after a late-night stewards meeting.

The Dutchman looked to have secured his first pole position since the Austrian Grand Prix, but has seen that snatched away after the session.

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Verstappen has already claimed drivers' championship success in 2024, sealing his fourth consecutive title at the Las Vegas GP.

His performance during qualifying in Qatar, however, kept alive Red Bull's narrow hopes of claiming a third successive constructors' championship title. The reigning champions are sat 67 points behind leaders McLaren with two races to go.

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Verstappen demoted by stewards

However, an incident involving Verstappen and Russell that happened during Q3 caught the attention of the stewards, with the top two from qualifying being summoned to the stewards' room.

Verstappen allegedly broke the minimum lap time set by the race director at the beginning of the weekend, and was being investigated for driving unnecessarily slowly.

The minimum lap time is in place to try and stop drivers bunching up during qualifying and jostling for position, with a nasty looking incident with Russell being caused by the alleged slow driving.

As Russell looked to get a run ahead of his hot lap, Verstappen appeared to block the Mercedes driver, prompting Russell to take evasive action, and voice his discontent at the four-time world champion over team radio.

In an official statement from the FIA, it has now been confirmed that Verstappen has lost his pole position, with Russell being promoted.

The ruling stated: "The stewards heard from the driver of Car 1 [Max Verstappen], the driver of Car 63 [George Russell], team representatives and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video, timing, telemetry, team radio and in-car video evidence.

"Car 1 was on a different preparation strategy to that of Car 63. Car 1 was well outside of the delta and the driver of Car 1 explained he had let Cars 4 and 14 past.

"The driver of Car 63 claimed that he had adhered to the delta and did not expect Car 1 to be on the racing line. He stated that if a car was going slow in a high speed corner, it should not be on the racing line.

"The stewards regard this case as a complicated one in that clearly Car 1 did not comply with the Race Director’s Event Notes and clearly was driving, in our determination, unnecessarily slowly considering the circumstances.

"It was obvious the driver of Car 1 was attempting to cool his tyres. He also could see Car 63 approaching as he looked in his mirror multiple times whilst on the small straight between Turns 11 and 12.

"Unusually, this incident occurred when neither car was on a push lap. Had Car 63 been on a push lap, the penalty would have most likely been the usual 3 grid position penalty, however in mitigation of penalty, it was obvious that the driver of Car 63 had clear visibility of Car 1 and that neither car was on a push lap."

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