Verstappen loses third place after penalty for breaking VSC rules · RaceFans

Max Verstappen has lost third place in the Interlagos sprint race after receiving a five second post-race penalty.

The championship leader originally finished third behind the two McLarens, dropping two points in his championship battle with Lando Norris.

However Verstappen, who was penalised twice during the last race in Mexico, was hit by a five second penalty for driving too fast under Virtual Safety Car at the end of the race.

Race control gave notification Verstappen was under investigation as the sprint race came to an end. An hour later, a summons document issued by the FIA confirmed he was being investigated for breaching his VSC delta time.

Under Virtual Safety Car conditions, drivers must stay above a minimum lap time as well as a minimum sector time to help prevent them running too fast. Drivers receive a real-time delta to this minimum lap time on their steering wheel, which enables them to adjust how fast they are driving to stay within the regulations.

While drivers gain an advantage by remaining as close to their VSC delta as possible without exceeding it, being under their minimum lap time when the race officially returns to green flag racing triggers a penalty. The stewards confirmed Verstappen breached his VSC delta by 0.63 seconds before the race officially restarted as he attempted to challenge Oscar Piastri for second place into Descida do Lago on the final lap.

“Article 56.5 states in part ‘all cars must also be above this minimum time when the FIA light panels change to green.’,” the stewards noted. “The driver was 0.63 seconds below the minimum time at VSC end when the FIA light panels changed to green. This indicates a sporting advantage gained under VSC.

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“The driver explained that as he was awaiting VSC to end and he got the notification that he was below the minimum time, he attempted to correct the error but failed to do so by the point that the panels turned green. This is a breach and the standard penalty is applied for the advantage gained
at that time.

“The net effect of this put the driver ahead of where he was at the start of the VSC and not as a result of the car in front falling back.”

As a result of the infringement, Verstappen was handed a five second time penalty which drops him behind Charles Leclerc to fourth in the final sprint race results.

The stewards also gave Verstappen one penalty point on his superlicence as a result, putting him on a total of seven. Drivers receive an automatic ban if they reach 12 in the space of a year, but Verstappen will deduct two between this weekend’s round and the next in Las Vegas.

Norris is now 44 points behind Verstappen in the championship battle, heading into Saturday’s grand prix qualifying session.