Edging closer to an automatic one-race ban, Helmut Marko has warned Max Verstappen that “certain stewards” are open to more severe punishments but he didn’t name names.

Verstappen had a tumultuous relationship with Formula 1’s stewards in the latter part of his title fight with Lando Norris, leading to accusations from the Red Bull driver and his camp of British bias.

Max Verstappen is up to eight penalty points

Verstappen was in the thick of Formula 1’s penalty situations in five of the last six race weekends.

In Austin, although it was Norris who was given a five-second penalty for passing Verstappen off the track, the stewards mitigated that he had “little alternative other than to leave the track” having been forced wide by Verstappen.

A week later in Mexico, Verstappen received a 10-second penalty for the same infringement as well as a second penalty for forcing Norris off the track.

In Brazil he lost third place in the Sprint for being under the minimum VSC delta time while in Qatar he was demoted from pole position to P2 for driving unnecessarily slowly on a cooldown lap during qualifying.

His last penalty came in Sunday night’s Abu Dhabi, a 10-second penalty for causing a collision with Oscar Piastri.

Mexico, Brazil, Qatar and Abu Dhabi all came with penalty points on the reigning World Champion’s Super Licence, increasing Verstappen’s tally from two to eight.

The first two of his eight points expires on 30th June next year, only after 10 races have been run in the F1 2025 championship.

Marko has warned his driver to watch out for “certain” stewards when he defends his title, and tries to avoid an automatic race ban, next season.

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“He got two points again and is now on eight. We have to be careful,” he told Sky Deutschland.

“Certain stewards give more severe punishments, but that’s a problem that everyone has and it was mentioned that more consistency would be better.”

Formula 1’s penalty points regulations dictate that any driver who amassed 12 points over a 12-month rolling period will sit out the next race. Kevin Magnussen suffered that fate in Baku this season.

Marko also weighed in on Verstappen’s criticism of the stewards in Abu Dhabi when he voiced his displeasure over his 10-second penalty for hitting Piastri.

“Can we ask for 20 seconds? Stupid idiots!” said the 63-time race winner.

Marko said: “That wasn’t very diplomatic.

“It’s the emotions and at that moment you don’t think very diplomatically. Maybe you shouldn’t broadcast everything. In football, not everyone has a microphone hanging around their neck. I don’t want to know what kind of comments are being made.”

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