Max Verstappen handed five and Bottas handed three place grid penalty by stewards

Max Verstappen has been hit with a five-place grid penalty while Valtteri Bottas handed three-place grid penalty for the Qatar Grand Prix.

The stewards found Max failed to slow for double waved yellow flags during qualifying, meaning he will start the race from P7.

FIA statement said:

“notwithstanding the fact the team argued that the turning off of the yellow sector on the FIA marshalling system some 34 second prior to the driver reaching the yellow flag, signified that it was ‘play on’, it was the driver’s responsibility to take the appropriate action when entering what was a double yellow flag area.

“The driver acknowledged his awareness of the presence of Car 10 on the right side of the track. Having seen a disabled car, it is reasonable to expect, as was the case of the driver of Car 55 [Carlos Sainz], that there was a potential danger and that a yellow flag situation probably existed and therefore to take the appropriate action (i.e. to reduce speed).”

The stewards also pointed to a precedent involving Lewis Hamilton at last year’s Austrian Grand Prix and Sebastian Vettel in Bahrain earlier this season.

“The penalty for the driver of Car 44 [Hamilton] in Austria 2020 resulted in a grid penalty of 3 positions which is the usual penalty for breaching a single flag situation, and the penalty for the driver of Car 5 [Vettel] in Bahrain 2021 which resulted in a grid penalty of 5 positions which is the usual penalty for breaching a double flag situation.

“Accordingly, the Stewards believe they have no option but to impose the standard penalty for a breach of the double yellow flag requirements referred to above.”

FIA statement regarding Valtteri Bottas’ three place grid penalty