Verstappen slams "idiot steward" after US GP penalty
- Published on 22 Oct 2017 23:46
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- By: Fergal Walsh
Max Verstappen has lashed out at an "idiot steward" who penalised him for his overtake on Kimi Raikkonen on the final lap of the US Grand Prix. Verstappen was found guilty of cutting Turn 17 while overtaking Raikkonen, and was booted from the podium room.
The Dutchman was voted Driver of the Day after starting from sixteenth on the grid. After the third lap, he was inside the top ten, and by the tenth lap, he was inside the top 6. The 20-year-old made two pit-stops on his way to the podium fight.
"It's just one idiot steward up there who makes the decisions against me," Verstappen said. "[He was] also in Mexico [of 2016, when Verstappen was also penalised post-race]. Now I get a five-second penalty and a penalty point, for what?
"At the end of the day, everybody's running wide everywhere, there are no track limits, and then the crowd is loving it and you do something like that in front of world TV. You pick someone out from the podium again and tell them to go away. At the end of the day, I still had a great race. I'm happy with fourth. Just the way they did it is unbelievable."
Verstappen also suggested that fans shouldn't attend next year's race as the penalty "killed" racing: "You can't protest, it's in the rules. They know how to make the rules. At the moment it's in their favour. They decide and you can't do anything against them which is of course really weird. But what can you do?
"It's not good for the crowd. I really hope next year nobody is coming, because like this, the sport doesn't make sense. Everyone is loving it, great action. You go five or 10 centimetres in the inside of the kerb, everyone is running wide everywhere, nobody's saying anything, like in qualifying at Turn 19 you could just run wide wherever you liked. And they killed the race basically like that."
Fergal Walsh
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Replies (10)
Login to replyBENNY DONKER
Posts: 1,976
Conneley's a bloody sucker. He'd better not come to any Grand Prix anymore!
kngrthr
Posts: 203
stupid decision.
kimi jinked right fractionally and max reacted to avoid possible collision.
all perfectly legitimate.
had he dived in and taken kimi's wheels off everyone would have been annoyed.
he does it the right way and is penalised
f1ski
Posts: 726
obviously no foul raikkonen has no objection
mcbhargav
Posts: 1,332
If RB brings this issue up with FIA, then we could believe if VER is correct.
Bhurt
Posts: 320
Funny how the stewards aren't idiots when Max wrecks people without penalty. About time he got on the wrong end of the inconsistent stewarding for once.
LightIsRight
Posts: 113
There actually is a lesson to be learnt here. If you know the stewards are not impartial and have an issue with you then calling them idiots is not going to win you favours with them down the line. Pretty sure he will be scrutinised a lot closer now by the said idiot. You have to be careful what you say.
KyalamiKid
Posts: 146
Not calling him an idiot and just accepting it is not going to help him in the future either. It is time for unified decisions, and track limits are BS at the moment - put big kerbs or gravel traps or other things that drivers don't like to go over...
LightIsRight
Posts: 113
I agree. But the team should deal with it and not the driver. You less likely as a driver to have fall out that way. And yes, big kerbs! Then let them decide how much risk to take while cornering. Big kerbs would stop me. Gravel traps are too much maintenance.
Freguz
Posts: 160
Bad decision.
Most of the drivers were driving outside track limits at occasions. But only when you pass someone in that moment, it should be illegal? That is also to be considered as possible overtake since the guy ahead makes his pitstop and exit pits behond you, because of your driving outside track limits...
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Stewards need to be far more consistant. As for Max' wording of it: grow up. It was a gray zone move at best.