Sitting on 11 penalty points and facing the very real prospect of a race ban, Helmut Marko says it won’t come to that as Max Verstappen has been “under control”, at least “so far”.

Verstappen is one point away from an automatic race ban as the Dutchman’s tally climbed to 11 when he was penalised for crashing into George Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix.

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Verstappen clattered into Russell at the Barcelona circuit as the Mercedes driver went to overtake him after Red Bull told Verstappen to give Russell the position due to his earlier off-track excursion as they battled over fourth place.

Verstappen instead jinked to the right and crashed into Russell.

The stewards ruled that the ‘collision was undoubtedly caused by the actions’ of Verstappen and gave him a 10-second penalty that dropped him from fifth to tenth at the chequered flag.

He was also given three penalty points on his Super Licence, moving him to within one point of a race ban.

F1 regulations state that any driver who amasses 12 points in a 12-month rolling period is automatically banned for the very next event.

That means any transgression at the Canadian Grand Prix could see him sit out Red Bull’s home race, the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring.

And even if he puts in a clean weekend in Montreal, he’ll need to toe the line in Austria or risk missing the British Grand Prix.

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After the Austrian though, he’ll lose two of his penalty points under the rolling 12-month system, which will give him a bit more breathing room.

The upside is that having concluded last season with eight points on his Super Licence, his Spanish Grand Prix transgression and punishment were his first points of F1 2025, nine races into the campaign.

Verstappen, as Marko pointed out, can do it.

Asked about the prospect of his driver being banned for Austria, the Red Bull motorsport advisor told OE24: “No, no, that won’t happen. He’s got himself under control so far.”

Last season, a crowd of 302,000 attended the Austrian Grand Prix over the course of the three days, a similar number to the previous two editions of the race.

Many of those fans are Verstappen’s Orange Army.

Marko concedes that is not a thought that would’ve crossed Verstappen’s mind in the heat of the moment in Spain.

“Max certainly wasn’t thinking about that at the time,” he said.

“But if you always have to drive with a knife between your teeth like he did this year, then everything is just more difficult.”

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