Will Verstappen modify his driving after penalty?
McLaren's Oscar Piastri leads the 2025 drivers' championship after victory in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.After the first triple header of the season, there is a week's break before Formula 1 heads to Miami from 2-4 May.Before that, BBC Sport F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your latest questions following the race in Jeddah.
Will Max Verstappen modify his driving as a result of the decision to give him a five-second penalty in Saudi Arabia? - KateMax Verstappen was given a five-second penalty in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix because the stewards adjudged him to have gained an advantage by leaving the track while contesting the lead with McLaren's Oscar Piastri at the first corner.The stewards pointed to the driving standards guidelines in making their decision, reporting that "Car 81 (Piastri) had its front axle at least alongside the mirror of Car One (Verstappen) prior to and at the apex of corner one when trying to overtake Car One on the inside."In fact, Car 81 was alongside Car One at the apex. Based on the drivers' standards guidelines, it was therefore Car 81's corner and he was entitled to be given room."Verstappen chose not to give his opinion of the incident or the decision after the race, pointing to the risk he would be censured by governing body the FIA.Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said the penalty was "very harsh" because "Max can't just disappear".The guidelines don't dictate what a driver in his situation should do, but taking the lead back by going off track is not an option. But Verstappen races hard, and pushes the limit of the rules. In critical situations such as this, he will do everything he can to keep position, and then force the stewards to make a decision.This is understandable on two levels: first, the advantage of being in front and running in clean air is significant, as the race subsequently showed, and if he ends up being allowed to keep the position, it can win him the race; second, in the past, the stewards have often chosen not to punish him.However, the guidelines have changed this year, after significant pressure from the other drivers, exactly because of the way Verstappen races.This was the first time the new rules have been tested with Verstappen, and this time his approach did not work. But he has had a lifetime of racing this way, so it would be quite a switch for him to change his approach.Having said that, he is smart as well as tough. It would be a surprise if he did not learn from this incident in some ways for next time.From Piastri's side, he has now laid down a marker to Verstappen. He is a decisive, clinical racer who is not to be intimidated.
Does Lando Norris need to go sit down with Nico Rosberg to understand how he changed his mentality in his championship year? – GaryIn 2016, Nico Rosberg won the championship by pushing himself to the limit to be able to compete with an essentially faster team-mate in Lewis Hamilton, ensuring he was his best self all the time and hoping that would be enough.Rosberg was handed a significant advantage with the comparative reliability of the two Mercedes at the start of the season, and even then Hamilton would have clawed the advantage back had he not had an engine failure while leading in Malaysia late in the season.The situation at McLaren this year feels different. In 2024, Norris was decisively the faster and more convincing McLaren driver over the season. In 2025 so far, that has been Piastri.Norris is struggling to adapt to certain characteristics of the McLaren - particularly its lack of front grip at certain phases of the corner with his driving style.But he is aware of what he needs to do. As he put it in Jeddah on Sunday: "It's my qualifying, my Saturdays, which are not good enough at the minute. That's because I am struggling a little bit with the car."Yesterday was not the car, it was just me trying to take too many risks."So I just have to peg it back. I've got the pace. It's all in there. It's just sometimes I ask for a bit too much and sometimes I get a bit too 'ego' probably and try to put the perfect lap together. I just need to chill out a little bit."Of course when the margins are so tight - pole is being decided by hundredths of a second at each race - it's one thing to say that, and another to do it without coming off second best.
During the race in Saudi Arabia, Liam Lawson picked up a 10-second penalty for completing his pass on Jack Doohan off-track, so gained an advantage. Max Verstappen only got five seconds for his off-track advantage. What's the difference between these two? - JamesAs the stewards explained in the verdict on Verstappen: "Ordinarily, the baseline penalty for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage is 10 seconds."However, given that this was lap one and a turn one incident, we considered that to be a mitigating circumstance and imposed a five-second time penalty instead."So Lawson got the standard penalty because it was during the body of the race, whereas Verstappen's had the mitigating circumstances of being on the first lap, which has come to be treated differently because of the proximity of all the cars.
Why can't we go back to having a penalty that actually changes the position of the cars on track almost immediately (e.g. drive-through etc) rather than at a pit stop or after the race is completed? – NeilAfter the controversy of the title-deciding race in Abu Dhabi in 2021, it was decided that teams should no longer be able to talk directly to the race director during a grand prix.However, they can still talk to his assistants in race control and discuss incidents. So when a driver does a manoeuvre that looks borderline, teams have three options.They can choose proactively to give the place back - as McLaren did with Lando Norris against Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain.They can get in touch with race control and ask for an opinion on the move, and then make a decision as to what to do about it.Or they can plough on and hope for the best, as Red Bull did in Jeddah.The FIA stewards will then make their decision as to how to handle it. They have moved away from ordering drivers to give the position back, preferring specific penalties for specific offences.Of course, the risk of this approach is that a driver in a faster car can commit an offence to gain an advantage and then effectively overturn the penalty before he serves it by building a lead bigger than the time loss of the penalty.This is why Red Bull and Verstappen did not give the place back in Saudi Arabia.Some people will see that as gaining from an unfair advantage, which is what the penalty is trying to prevent, so this approach clearly has potential flaws. But it is where the sport has landed for now.
Williams have already beaten their 2024 full season points total. What has made them so much better? – StewartWilliams' progress this season is a direct result of the investment put in by owners Dorilton since they took over in 2020 and the changes to the team made under new boss James Vowles.Into last year, the introduction of new factory processes caused a difficult winter, the car barely made the first test and it was overweight for the first chunk of the season.The difference this year was dramatic - their launch was held at Silverstone in public view in mid-February, and they ran the car for the first time there.Williams are very much focused on 2026 and the new rules being introduced then, but as Vowles put it at the launch: "What I can demonstrate is very clear progress that's taken place in manufacture, process, technology kicking in."We are moving into a new building this year, a benchmark driver in-the-loop simulator, that was started in 2023. The fact we've gone from 700 people to 1,000 means you'll have low-hanging fruit of producing a better car with more performance added to it. But I consider that second to the long-term investment to get us where we need to be."Being on the weight limit sounds like a small detail but is actually a big deal. Last year, it was costing them not far off 0.5 seconds a lap early in the year. Add that to this year's performance, and instead of being the fifth quickest car on average, as they are now, they would be eighth fastest, ahead of only Haas and Sauber.On top of that, Williams now has two world-class drivers rather than just one. And they are not crashing like they were last year.Alex Albon ran with the car's improved performance and scored good points in the first three races, while both he and Carlos Sainz were in the top 10 in Saudi Arabia.So, in a nutshell, the team has made progress, they have a better driver line-up and you're seeing it in the performance of the car.
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