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Following the five-second penalties handed out to both George Russell and Lando Norris at the US GP, but not Max Verstappen, Mercedes F1 principal Toto Wolff said FIA stewards had made “some biased decision-making”.
Mercedes F1’s George Russell was handed a five-minute penalty for pushing Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas off the track at Turn 12 early in the Austin race. Later, around mid-race, RB’s Yuki Tsunoda received the same penalty for pushing Williams’ Alex Abbon off the track.
But Max Verstappen did not receive the same treatment from the stewards, according to Toto Wolff, neither at the first corner after the start that pushed Norris off the track on the outside, nor at the end of the race in his duel with the McLaren Englishman.
Norris had arrived in the Dutchman’s Red Bull RB20 with much fresher tyres, due to his tactic of taking his one and only pit stop more slowly. Coming into turn 12 Max braked slowly to defend 3rd place, causing him to open off the track on the exit of the left turn.
With both off the track on the outside, Norris continued his attack and managed to pass the Dutchman, but the Briton was later handed a 5 second penalty for taking the lead by going off the track – as per the stewards’ decision.
Wolff was visibly irritated. When he learned of Russell’s penalty earlier, he described it as “ridiculous” speaking to his English team driver over the radio.
And when the Englishman asked, also on the radio, if Verstappen had been penalized for his move at the first corner of the race, Wolff replied “dhe didn’t get a penalty, and in the end Lando was awarded for being pushed off the track and overtaking on the outside. I guess that’s kind of biased decision-making.”
Later, in his statements to the English network Sky Sports F1, the Austrian director of Mercedes F1 stated that the decisions of the racetracks “They are inconsistent. With Valtteri, we didn’t even compete sprint) we saw a number of such incidents which were identical and were not penalized even though they occurred in the contention of places, in reality.
Therefore, the fact that we accepted this penalty is completely paradoxical. I think we know why, but I can’t say it on TV.”Wolff added.
Finally, when asked if this was due to overly meticulous refereeing, the Austrian replied: “Sometimes there are correlations. When it comes to decision making, this starts to get a little interesting.
At the end of the day, it’s a tough job. Some (umpires) are very good, some try to do their best, and we have to give them credit.” Toto Wolff concluded.
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