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Verstappen's grid penalty 'not comparable' to Hamilton's time penalty

Verstappen's grid penalty 'not comparable' to Hamilton's time penalty

17-09-2021 09:33 Last update: 10:40
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GPblog.com

Max Verstappen has been given a three-place grid penalty for his collision with Lewis Hamilton at Monza. There has been much criticism of the penalty which some say is disproportionate to the ten-second penalty Lewis received at Silverstone, but according to Michael Masi the two moments are not comparable.

Verstappen was seen as the one most to blame for the crash at the Italian Grand Prix. It was the same sentence we saw with the ten-second penalty for Hamilton. Despite that penalty, the Brit went on to take the win, while that seems highly unlikely for Verstappen in Russia.

Penalty for Verstappen

''I think one of the things that we've generally agreed amongst the teams is that a five-second or a 10-second penalty, give or take, is there or thereabouts between the two of them. So you know, you need to look at it on the basis of if they had continued, it would have been the time penalty in the race. However, they didn't,'' Masi said according to Autosport.com.

''In Silverstone, you can't compare them at all, you've got two cars taken out in one incident, versus one car taken out in another incident. So you know, as in they stopped, they could not continue to serve the penalty is what I'm trying to explain. So a grid penalty, as we've seen, is what's applied for this year, as we've agreed with all of the teams, is applied for when someone doesn't continue'', concludes the F1 race director.