Max Verstappen has questioned the “weird” timing of the FIA’s decision to remove race director Niels Wittich with three races to go in the season.

Wittich ‘stepped down’ earlier this month but there is speculation that the FIA forced him out rather than the German deciding to leave of his own accord.

Max Verstappen reacts to surprise FIA race director departure

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

Wittich was placed in the spotlight after Sao Paulo when a couple of questionable delays to bringing out safety cars and red flags appeared to hurt Verstappen and Red Bull in particular but even those inside Red Bull would not have expected Wittich to get the boot as a result.

As to whether his sacking was because of Sao Paulo remains unclear as the FIA gave little reasoning but it has led Verstappen to question the “weird” timing of making such a decision during the middle of a season.

“It’s a bit weird with three races to go to do that,” Verstappen told media including PlanetF1.com in Las Vegas. “It doesn’t matter if you’re positive or negative about certain things, which I thought in Brazil, there was definitely room for improvement for example. It’s still a bit weird to have to now deal with a different race director.”

Verstappen suggested it would have been wiser to change the race director during the off-season to give them time to prepare for the role but the new man in the role, Rui Marques, is going from race directing the Macau Grand Prix last weekend to his first F1 race this weekend.

“If you want to change normally a race director, maybe you do it after a season,” Verstappen said. “And then you get a bit of time also for the race director himself to get up to speed with things. You have the pre-season testing, you get into your role a bit more but let’s see how it goes. I mean, they have decided it, and we have to deal with it.”

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Verstappen’s ideal situation would be to not hear from the new race director at all in Vegas as he focuses on securing a fourth world title, a feat he can do provided he finishes ahead of Norris. As for how strong the RB20 is at the moment, Verstappen suggested the wet weather in Sao Paulo made it hard to get a good read.

“We did make some improvements with the car since Austin but in Austin and in the main race, we’re still lacking pace,” he said.

“Mexico was quite a poor race. Now, some things since then, hopefully have been changed, not necessarily, from our side. And I hope that now in the last few races, we can see the full race performance of every car.

“We just keep trying to improve the balance of the car. I think in the sprint in Brazil on the dry, we’re quite competitive. But of course, I’m very happy that I won on Sunday. Would have also been very nice to see the pace in the dry on a full race distance.

“But here again, it’s so different with tyre temps, just understanding the tyres, how they operate or making sure that you operate well on both compounds that you use in the race is going to be very crucial. It’s probably a bit more complicated than most race weekends that we have.”

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