F1 News: Azerbaijan's Max Verstappen Controversy Highlights How Wrong Carlos Sainz's Penalty Was

Former F1 team manager Peter Windsor argues that Max Verstappen and George Russell's contact during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix shows how inconsistent penalties are.

The recent collision between Max Verstappen and George Russell during the Baku sprint race has stirred up discussion about the fairness of F1 penalties. F1 commentator Peter Windsor, former team manager for Williams and Ferrari, believes the incident highlights the inconsistencies in the sport's penalty system.

Verstappen and Russell collided at Turn 2 during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix sprint, leaving the Red Bull with a hole in the sidepod. While the incident was considered a racing incident, Verstappen was not pleased and had a heated discussion with Russell after the race.

Windsor has claimed that Carlos Sainz's penalty during the Australian Grand Prix during the highly controversial restart was not deserved. He has pointed out the trend of drivers on the inside always being blamed for collisions, which he feels is unfair.

Although Windsor does not believe that Russell's manoeuvre was deserving of a penalty, he feels that the lack of consequence for the Mercedes driver highlights the inconsistencies of FIA stewards' decisions. He cited the example of Sainz, who was penalised with a five-second penalty that dropped him out of the points in Melbourne.

During a recent YouTube video, Windsor argued:

“Baku is a fairly classic modern street circuit.

“It’s got these two DRS zones but incredibly tight sections of road and I think the point I want to make here is there was Max on the outside, he stayed on the outside through Turn 1 with George inside him.

“And they go into Turn 2 and he’s on the outside again and George runs wide and hits him – and actually Max also brushes the guardrail, it was a fairly clean brush so it didn’t really do any damage. It was the damage from George that was the real impact.

“Max was saying quite a lot about that: ‘I can’t believe he hasn’t been asked to give that position back, this isn’t racing, you don’t run into people’.

“And afterwards, when they got out of the cars, there was a bit of a chat with George saying, ‘I’m really sorry, it wasn’t my fault, tyres weren’t up to temperature’ and Max quite correctly said, ‘Yeah, but nobody’s tyres were up to temperature – you knew you were going to have understeer going into that corner.’

Windsor continued:

“But the real point, of course, is that recently I’ve been banging on about how the FIA always penalise the guy on the inside on any of these incidents – Carlos Sainz/Fernando Alonso [at] the Australian Grand Prix a very good example.

“And yet here Max is on the outside, George is on the inside, hits him because he’s got nowhere else to go and he’s run wide – and there’s no penalty.

“I don’t think there should have been a penalty because you can put that under the heading of first/second corner classic motor racing, but I don’t think that should have been a penalty in Australia either. That’s the point.

“The lack of consistency is ridiculous, I think, and that was a very good example of how inconsistent the penalties are.If I was Carlos Sainz watching that replay afterwards, I’d still be thinking of Melbourne: ‘What is going on here?’

“And it’s not the only example of that.

The reporter concluded:

“Max quite correctly, probably, is thinking: ‘Well, I’m on the outside here. If George hits me, for sure he’s going to have to give the position back or he’s going to get penalised, one of the two, because that’s what’s going on in Formula 1 now.

“But it didn’t happen.”