Having already given Max Verstappen a 10-second time penalty at the Spanish Grand Prix, the FIA stewards have taken further action.

And said action is the move to add three further penalty points to Verstappen‘s FIA Super Licence, following a controversial collision with Mercedes’ George Russell in the closing stages of the race.

Max Verstappen on brink of F1 race ban after Spanish GP

The decision comes after Verstappen drove into Russell at Turn 5, Verstappen having been instructed by his Red Bull team to concede P4 to the Mercedes driver in a late flurry of action after the Safety Car made an appearance, following the retirement of Russell’s Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli from the race.

Verstappen was on hard tyres at the race restart versus softs for those around him, and as Charles Leclerc completed a pass into Turn 1 to move into the final podium position, Russell looked to follow the Ferrari through, as Verstappen took to the run-off and returned still ahead of Russell in P4.

Ironically, the stewards announced post-race that Verstappen would not have been punished for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, but Red Bull told their reigning four-time World Champion to concede the place to Russell, a call which did not go down well with Verstappen.

It looked like he was obliging at Turn 5, only to move right and bang wheels with Russell as the Mercedes driver tried to come through into P4, with Verstappen later giving up the position successfully at Turn 12.

The stewards deemed Verstappen to have caused a collision and issued a 10-second time penalty, dropping him to P10 in the final classification.

Post-race, they took further action by adding three penalty points to Verstappen’s Super Licence.

That moves him up to 11 for the 12-month period, meaning just one more would trigger a one-race ban for the reigning World Champion.

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The stewards’ verdict reads: “The stewards reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video, timing, telemetry, and in-car video evidence.

“From the radio communications, it was clear that the driver of Car 1 was asked by his team to ‘give the position back’ to Car 63 for what they perceived to be an earlier breach by Car 1 for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage (in fact, we had later determined that we would take no further action in relation to that incident).

“The driver of Car 1 was clearly unhappy with his team’s request to give the position back. At the approach to Turn 5, Car 1 significantly reduced its speed thereby appearing to allow Car 63 to overtake. However, after Car 63 got ahead of Car 1 at the entry of Turn 5, Car 1 suddenly accelerated and collided with Car 63.

“The collision was undoubtedly caused by the actions of Car 1. We therefore imposed a 10 second time penalty on Car 1.”

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