No Impeding Penalties For Verstappen, Russell And Alonso And Here’s Why

Posted on October 29, 2023 | by Charley Williams Well, well, well. Turns out chaos doesn’t always ensue. The Mexican GP qualifying session was anything but straightforward, with shock Q1 exits, a surprising front-row lockout and multiple investigations logged for the stewards to sort out afterwards. Lovely.  The most notable investigations were for Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso and George Russell, who were all summoned to the FIA stewards for allegedly impeding during qualifying, particularly at the end of the pit lane. However, the FIA has announced that there will be no further action against these investigations, with all three of them escaping what could have been a three-place grid penalty. But why? Well, it is worth remembering that a similar incident happened just a few rounds ago, where Verstappen escaped penalty for impeding in a similar fashion, ‘blocking’ cars from leaving the pit lane in Singapore. Aside from setting a precedent, on this occasion, the stewards considered: “That the entire set of incidents occurred as a direct result of the implementation of the minimum lap time between SC2 and SC1, which is designed (correctly so, in our view) to avoid dangerous backing-up of cars on the circuit during qualification.” The stewards said the race director has “accepted that these contrary requirements exist” and that all parties involved agree that it’s better to have cars backing up in the pit lane or at the pit exit rather than creating potentially dangerous situations on the track. Their explanation ends with: “It is desirable that a better solution be found for the pit exit however, at this stage, what that solution would be is unknown”, and there is no way they are backing down on their minimum lap time between the two safety car lines. So, we guess blocking drivers in the pit lane is going to be the new norm!