Max Verstappen picked up a spate of penalty points in the final races of last season, but says the looming threat of a ban won’t lead him to change his approach.
The Red Bull driver is on eight penalty points. He will receive an automatic race ban if he reaches 12, and will not have any points removed from his licence until the British Grand Prix in July.Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko admitted last month Verstappen will “need to start being careful” in order to avoid a ban. But the four-times world champion doesn’t intend to.
“I won’t change my driving style because of that,” Verstappen told Blick. “I know when I’ve gone too far.
“Like at the finale in Abu Dhabi when I attacked Piastri at the start. I had no problem apologising to [him] after the race.”
Verstappen’s collision with Piastri earned him his most recent two penalty points. It was the fourth time in the last five events of 2024 that he picked up penalty points.
He was incensed by the penalty he received after qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix last year, where the stewards ruled he delayed George Russell. However, Verstappen rebounded the following day to claim his ninth victory of the season.
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Verstappen said it only takes him “one night” to put such a setback behind him, “because there’s no point in carrying your anger into the next day.”
“If you spur my ambition, things can get going,” he added.
“We could discuss some of the penalties and the points for hours. Now, like Alonso, I already have eight penalty points. But I’m [not] going to change my driving style.”
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MichaelN
16th January 2025, 8:36
Verstappen has been equally praised and criticised for skirting the edge of what is allowed. In other words, he adjusts his driving to the rules. If he won’t change, as he suggests, then he’ll still do so, and thus will factor in the points. Whether he likes it or not, it’s a risk he needs to manage. If 2025 is close, like late 2024, he can’t afford to miss a race due to a ban.
This seems like mere bluster to signal to his fellow drivers that he won’t roll over (like they usually do). And that is ultimately the only real solution, given how inconsistent the FIA is. The other drivers need to channel their inner Montoya, call Verstappen’s bluff, and accept that one DNF might spare them a lot of hassle further on.
Chris Horton
16th January 2025, 10:46
I couldn’t agree more.
He’ll continue to run people off the track/dive bomb/move under braking, until the other drivers
1 Don’t move
2 Turn in
It’s definitely in their interests. Like Martin Brundle recounts from his time racing Senna, “once he knew you’d move, you were done for”.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
20th January 2025, 19:43
or you are like Lando, and beat him to the ‘apex’ and force Max in to a penalty every time he dive bombs. Or you are like Lewis, and you let him cut across, slam on the brakes, and lift his car up like a judo throw, and cast him off the track.
The rules are garbage and were written for Max and that garbage style of racing, in order to ‘spice’ up fan engagement, attract people who don’t care as much about racing and more about people who want to see ‘blood’ or danger. It was done in MotoGP w/ Marc Marquez, and it’s been done in F1.
Marc is past his prime, will continue to fall further behind every time he falls off his bike, due to his body aging past 30 years of age. Verstappen will eventually be seen as desperate and ridiculous because other drivers will beat him at his own game, and in a slightly slower car, he will be made fun of.
Hes not a bad driver, but hes been enabled to behave like an idiot, and his Dad needs to give him some serious breathing room, so that he can climb his own mountain, and realize himself, for himself, and actualize properly. Good parents have to let their children go eventually. I think Hamilton never had a dad like him, but even he still had to find a way to put some space in there, in order to do his own thing. It’s the only way to respect yourself, and thats the only way you can really truly respect others.
asz
16th January 2025, 11:19
Fully agree. This is an investment all of the WDC-capable drivers need to make unless they want to spend the rest of their F1 careers on the back foot. Some of them (Leclerc, Russell) are perhaps halfway there, some of them not really.
Also, I liked the original inner/outer Montoya a lot back then :-)
S
16th January 2025, 12:49
I’m not sure I agree.
I think Verstappen cares less about racking up championships and much more about having fun and challenging himself behind the wheel. His long-term image or ‘legacy’ isn’t his main priority – a ban (or threat thereof) won’t deter him in the same way it would most other F1 drivers. His approach suggests that he’d be content to cop a ban and get straight back to business as usual afterwards – basically as he always has.
Does he alter his style to the application of the rules – sure, of course. Everyone in F1 does, because the rules are the only limits they need to care about other than their own personal safety. However, in Verstappen’s case, he’s not afraid to play with the people applying the rules in the same manner he does with his competitors.
It’s good that he does, though, because F1 really needs someone like that. The rules in F1 are usually applied whenever and however the stewards and race director of the day feel like it, regardless of what’s written in the book and the intention behind it. Finally, someone is forcing F1 to consider at that approach more seriously.
MichaelN
16th January 2025, 15:24
A fair point, but we’ve seen this juvenile “I won’t change for you!” story before. In early 2018, Verstappen had a whole bunch of incidents. It became a major topic of discussion and true to form, got him riled up and lashing out. When he again made a mess of things in Monaco, something finally clicked. He’s been superb ever since.
A ban, some penalties, or indeed a couple of broken front wings might just be the push he needs to clean up his act when it comes to battling for position. I guess we’ll see.
S
17th January 2025, 7:35
2018… He was, what – 21 years old?
Everyone is still developing mentally at that age.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
17th January 2025, 22:39
Everyone is still developing mentally at all ages (assuming they are alive, conscious and in substantial command of their own mind), in theory.
Moshambles (@moshambles)
16th January 2025, 8:38
I don’t recall any driver ever saying they would change their driving style, after incidents they caused. Whether they do change is another matter, but they would never admit to it. Bit of an eye rolling question really
asz
16th January 2025, 11:22
Although they might as well answer (just for fun) that, yes, they will completely overhaul their driving style in view of the latest incident.
Frank
16th January 2025, 12:24
Indeed. after Monaco 2018, many fans stated that his all-out and on-the edge driving in every session was exactly what made Verstappen so good and Verstappen himself claimed that he would not change a single thing.
Then, he almost immediately did exactly that and became a better driver as a result.
Todfod (@todfod)
16th January 2025, 14:36
If he decides to pull off the kind of defensive moves he did on Lando at Austria and COTA last season, then he’s definitely not changing his approach. I’m pretty sure the stewards will be harsh on him (as they should be) if he decides to carry too much speed while defending the inside line.
I kind of hope that he gets more penalty points early on… Red Bull will create a media shtt storm.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
16th January 2025, 20:27
The only one I can recall changing his driving style was David Coulthard’s annual “no more Mr Nice Guy” announcement. Don’t mess with me, again.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
17th January 2025, 22:38
@bullfrog Charles Leclerc said he’d change his driving style after Austria 2019, and did so.
Giancarlo Fisichella said the same after 2005 and… didn’t.
Maisch (@maisch)
16th January 2025, 9:44
As a spectator i really wish Verstappen was better in wheel to wheel racing, it would be more fun to watch great racing than penalties, broken wings, cars spun of etc. But it doesnt seems like he want to change anything..
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
16th January 2025, 11:55
@maisch that Leclerc-Hamilton battle in the Qatar sprint was stunning, tough but fair from both guys for about five corners.
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
16th January 2025, 12:24
@maisch Verstappen is an interesting case for me, I haven’t always liked his maneuvers and I think he crossed the lines several times.
But the thing is that my opinion doesn’t matter in this case and Max has been the master of driving while touching the line. Alonso has been applauded before for driving the rules, but I think Max is even better at it and is both fully aware of what is allowed or not, and very precise in positioning his car in relation.
I can’t blame Max but sometimes wish the rules were a bit more clear or a bit different on some points to produce better, more fair racing.
Chris Horton
16th January 2025, 10:42
Apologising doesn’t avoid penalty points.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
17th January 2025, 22:37
At least one of his rivals avoided community service that way, a different rival probably avoided a grid drop by doing so – apologising is therefore still be worth considering in the right context. (Not to mention, reputation in the paddock is worth cultivating).
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
16th January 2025, 13:50
So, it’s still Yield or Crash then.
El Pollo Loco
16th January 2025, 16:05
In that scenario he crashes too. Had so many of his competitors not proven unwilling to show him that they’d crash anytime he went for a move they felt wasn’t sporting, he’d not be doing this. The problem is not the stewards. It’s the drivers who’ve shown Max their belly. The only drivers who haven’t shown him their belly are Hamilton + Ocon and Alonso (though, in the latter’s case it’s more a case of they really haven’t had a battle where Max was trying to overtake him, but he doesn’t have a reference that would make him confident; in the former’s case Max knows Ocon isn’t a fan and is willing to block + crash into anyone). One of the weakest things about F1 is it’s the only top level series where drivers do zero self-regulating.
Edvaldo
16th January 2025, 15:22
There’s nothing to lose. Does anyone think they have the guts to ban him? He’s not KMag and Red Bull isn’t Haas.
Yes (@come-on-kubica)
16th January 2025, 15:27
Well hopefully he gets enough points in the first 5 races.
Robert (@lekkerbek)
16th January 2025, 16:02
Funny how you guys all act like Max is the only one with incidents and everybody else is squeaky clean.
You can give multiple examples from EVERY driver doing something similar as to what Max has done (apart from Mexico the 2nd 10 second penalty incident), but then it’s not even debated.
Yes he took out Piastri. Big deal. What about Hamilton who took out 3 cars in the Miami sprint race and didn’t get punished? That’s 2 penalty points versus 0.
Max gets penalty points for driving slow when everybody is on a slow lap.
George gets nothing for impeding on a hotlap in qualifying.
What’s the point in comparing penalty points if you treat similar incidents differently?
SteveP
16th January 2025, 18:12
That just about sums it all up.
We get it, the whole world has it in for Max.
Option 1. Give him the fastest car, and he can win happy and avoid licence points.
Option 2. Get him to change his style just enough to avoid the accusations of kamikaze behaviour, and points
Robert (@lekkerbek)
16th January 2025, 19:31
“That just about sums it all up.”
The easy way out by presenting a couple of lame childish options.
Deflecting and not addressing the issue. Typical.
anon
17th January 2025, 10:01
Isn’t that exactly what everyone else thinks you are doing with your “what about” rhetoric? You are accusing others of doing the same thing that you are doing, and seem oblivious to the hypocrisy in your position.
Robert (@lekkerbek)
17th January 2025, 13:34
No that is not what I’m doing. How do you not see the difference?
Person A singles out one particular driver and makes a mountain of a molehill for everything he does.
Person B (me) reacts to that and says that every other driver does what that particular driver does so why singling him out?
I’m not judging any driver here. I’m not making the initial statement. I simply say treat them the same. That’s not hypocrisy.
A perfect example of this was:
Max vs Piastri in Abu Dhabi
Hamilton vs 3 other drivers in Miami
Both clumsy and Hamilton has had many of those moments. And we can find examples for every other driver out there.
You are the second person to respond to me for “whataboutism”, but you both seem unable to actually counter my argument.
An Sionnach
16th January 2025, 22:09
Exactly. The second move in Mexico was not on at all. Other moves are very close to the margins and perhaps Max is the only current driver with the skill to successfully execute them.
The kind of commentary on display here briefly went to ground after Newey’s remarks about the demonisation of Max, but nobody had any intention of reflecting and becoming better people. Will they ever change the record? Unlike Max’s driving, this is far from entertaining.
Dusty
16th January 2025, 16:51
He doesn’t need to change. Stewards are much careful giving penalty points to any driver close to a race ban.
Dusty
16th January 2025, 16:53
Much more careful
sam
16th January 2025, 17:16
Go for the record max! You can get 20 points in 12 months. I have all the faith in the world in you.
lynn-m
16th January 2025, 19:31
Good. I’d rather see hard, aggressive racing than drivers just moving over and letting each other past.
Rubbing a bit is part of racing, Squeezing your rivals out if they try round the outside is also a part of racing so just let it go and lets go back to proper racing rather than silly penalties that just make the show that used to be a sport look ridiculous.
Villeneuve/Arnox is talked about as the greatest battle in the history of the sport yet when you boil it down it’s a series of dive-bombs from miles back with tires locked, multiple instances of wheel banging and saw them push each other beyond the white lines more than once.
Ans that Massa/Kubica last lap scrap at the 2007 Fuji race is a similar example. It was praised at the time for been 2 drivers fighting hard yet again it was dive-bombs, wheel banging, pushing each other off and overtaking beyond track limits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnxUu36-uYw
All stuff that gets instant penalties now and which modern show over sport fans do nothing but whine about.
asz
16th January 2025, 21:00
I think that is a wrong mindset.
I do get that this is what’s, shamefully, taught to aspiring young racers all around the world. The F1 commentators (race drivers themselves) in my country also accept it as normal. It is not.
The outside of a corner is still a legitimate part of the track. It is still rightfully occupied by a race car. A driver has as little right to squeeze another driver from that part of the track as from any other part.
You do not push a driver off the track on a straight when they are next to you. Why would you be allowed to do the same in a corner?
Driving a race car is about controlling it. If you are not able to control it well enough not to drift to the outside, that’s bad in itself. If it’s accepted as a deliberate move, that’s even worse.
It’s racing thuggery, plain and simple. Unfortunately, this kind of thuggery is not only accepted, but even celebrated by many. An attitude that fundamentally means overtaking on the outside should not even be possible, nay, you should not even try it. Actually, that’s just two drivers taking two different, but fully legitimate, lines and, in a sporting context, the faster should get ahead, no matter if on the inside or the outside.
The first of the battles you mention turned out to be enjoyable because both drivers adopted a no-holds-barred stance and both got away with it, which is far from a given in F1. The second battle was in a very wet race where crazy things just happen even without undue aggression.
The calculated, deliberate, in fact, perfectly controlled squeezing out of a rival is something else.
baasbas
17th January 2025, 15:44
@asz
I’m sorry but you spend an amount of time moaning about deliberate squeezing but then you seem to hail the two mentioned examples. Honest question: how?
asz
17th January 2025, 19:52
The examples we enjoy and remember fondly are when two drivers happen to be in an equally feisty mood at the same time and place but somehow both survive the scuffle. However, this is purely the luck of the draw and, accordingly, very rare.
Instead, most of the time it is one guy who tries to keep it clean and sporting, and another one who does not give a hang about such niceties. And knowing that the latter type is always around on a race track (because their attitude is fundamentally condoned) will cramp the style of the former, and may even deprive us of the possible clean battles.
Perry Paul
17th January 2025, 15:54
I agree 100%!! You don’t squeeze someone out on a straight so why can you in a corner?! Well said ash!! We are denied corner to corner racing because of the flawed rule that the car ahead at the apex owns the corner! What kind of racing do you guys wanna see? I wanna see them duke it out in the corners and the only way that can happen is if they have to respect the driver who was able to get a nose in! Watch Australian Super Cars and that’s what you see. F1 should be the best example of racing but it’s not because they messed with the rules of engagement in the corners so Max is not at fault here, he’s just doing what they’re all allowed to do! I love F1 but I truly hate those rules.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
16th January 2025, 21:00
Can we not compare real racing with Max? Max just pushes you off the track. He’s like a garbage truck that can race at F1 speeds. He belongs in Mario Kart racing.
Frank
17th January 2025, 22:10
It really was not. It gets a bit hairy at around minute 1:55. Arnoux is forced wide briefly but it does not seem intentional.
https://youtu.be/ii6H0MktrOg?si=lbS27SyKgAdk8rZH
Great battle. They race each other. Hard. But they do not routinely push each other wide.
lynn-m
17th January 2025, 23:50
thats not the full battle though. there were a few more laps where there was more occasions where they bumped each other off and ran each other out of room.
and there were more occasions from that era. i can think of james hunt squeezing mario andretti towards the edge of the track at zandvoort in maybe 1977 but where mario refused to lift resulting in contact. and something similar happened at paul ricard in 1973 between scheckter and fittipaldi.
Trying to pass around the outside was always considered a risk because you were always going to be run out of room unless you got so far alongside that you had to be given room. thats just the way it’s always been in every category which is why outside overtakes were always so uncommon and considered super amazing moves when someone pulled one off.
Frank
18th January 2025, 22:12
Even if there were several more exciting and controversial moves that somehow always seem to get edited out, I am very happy to argue that those 4 minutes are what oeople refer to when they talk about great racing.
I have no idea whether they were more aggressive earlier, but they were very civilized in the youtube clip. In fact, the only reason why the battle was epic was because it lasted many corners, only possible because no driver got crowded out.
So, no matter how ugly other battles have been, this one – during these laps – was clean and it was awesome.
Lets get back to driving like this.
Rachel M
16th January 2025, 22:14
I think that it is unfair to expect any driver to change their driving style in response to nearing the annual allotment of penalty points before a race ban. Formula 1 is a sport where drivers are on the limit of what the rules dictate, which makes the racing more interesting and technical, thus this question seems redundant to ask. Max has executed some really great moves and also some that are too aggressive, but the tension of competing and driving on the edge are what Formula 1 is made of.
David BR (@david-br)
16th January 2025, 22:18
In other news, Verstappen says he won’t be using square wheels this season.
I really hope he doesn’t change (obviously he won’t) and it’s a close season of racing. That way we’ll see whether his aggressive style against, say, 2 championship rivals over an entire season works in his favour or not.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
16th January 2025, 23:52
I doubt it will matter. Without Newey I don’t expect RBR’s offering to be all that good this year and I doubt Max will care much if he gets a penalty and misses a race or two while they try to improve it.
He’ll just drive for fun and make things difficult for anyone around him but it’s likely to be in the upper mid field against other drivers that won’t yield either.
Tommy C (@tommy-c)
17th January 2025, 6:41
Of course he won’t. The trouble is carrying on his driving standards from last season may well cost him a shot at the championship this year (if Ferrari and McLaren maintain their expected competitiveness). But who knows, he’s taken 4 on the bounce, he mightn’t care one iota! I just hope for the sake of the sport’s integrity we don’t see a repeat of his Mexico antics.
Kevin C (@kev-f1)
17th January 2025, 9:08
Looking forwards to seeing Mad Max watching from the sidelines early in 2025!! Ha Ha!
Biixis
17th January 2025, 16:11
If Verstappen feels the stewards are inconsistent or have shown favoritism in the past, it could encourage him to push the limits even further. Knowing he might not face the same consequences as others could fuel his aggressive style. Fair and consistent rulings from the stewards are key to keeping things balanced and respectful in F1. If that balance shifts, it could definitely impact how he drives.
That said, it’s interesting how stewards’ decisions come under more scrutiny when the championship battle heats up. There’s always a sense that they might act to keep the competition alive, whether by cracking down on Verstappen or letting more aggressive moves slide. This might explain why he seemed to get away with more in 2021 but is being penalized now. At the end of the day, it feels like it’s all about keeping the drama high and fans hooked.
Leo B
17th January 2025, 16:30
Overheard one time in the cool down room:
Vettel: If I go there we both crash
Kvyat: Don’t go there
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
17th January 2025, 22:34
I think I recall Max recently saying that he would time his race ban for when his child would be born, in which case he has zero incentive to change his strategy in the broad sense. Only the timing of the last penalty point, which I don’t think he trusts the stewards to deliver on schedule in any case. (I’m hoping the whole thing was a joke, but it would be foolish to assume so, especially if the FIA finds more ways to annoy him in 2025).