Rivals could draw a foul – Jake Boxall-Legge
Max Verstappen is just four licence points short of a race ban, and none of his current accrual will disappear until 30 June. So he’ll have to go 11 grands prix without picking up too many points. That should be simple, as long as he keeps his nose clean. The less aggressive drivers usually manage it…
You’d dare say that Verstappen is less likely to pick up penalty points in the opening half of the season; six of his eight penalty points were collected in the final five rounds of the 2024 campaign. If Red Bull starts 2025 as it did in 2024, then it will also be much easier for Verstappen to avoid the ire of the stewards; very few drivers receive penalty points when there are no other cars in the same postcode. It’s when the field is compressed that blots start to stain copybooks on a more regular basis.
The weight of penalty points won’t really change Verstappen’s approach, neither is he likely to trigger a ban unless something remarkable happens, but it might give the drivers around him more encouragement to push him a bit more. And, should Red Bull shake up in a front-guard melee at the start of 2025, there is a range of adversaries who might consider a hint of provocation to draw the foul – particularly if the Dutchman is involved in an early sniff of a title battle.
Now, this is a suggestion that would likely lead to an indignant response from most; our current crop of drivers would never stoop to something so low, and only wish to win a title against their rivals fairly. But, were the roles reversed, Verstappen would definitely consider a rival’s impending ban as an opportunity to exploit.
He’s too smart to get banned – Alex Kalinauckas
Verstappen is far too clever and brilliant to get himself banned. That he’s approaching the threshold for such a sanction reflects his utterly ruthless style, and how he reacted poorly to Red Bull’s implosion last year, but he can yield just enough to make a key difference.
Take 2018. Verstappen produced a string of early-season gaffes around the prodigious pace that culminated in his Monaco FP3 crash and missing pole that would have won that race. But, despite never publicly admitting to it, he dialled things back thereafter. From his subsequent gains, many things that came to define F1’s next era – Verstappen’s own – occurred.
Then there’s how he perfected his ‘Brazil 2021’ art of turning defence into attack on the inside line of a corner during battle. By lowering his speed, as at Austin’s Turn 12 last year, the move became far less egregious, if not any less cynical. But just to have the ability to exploit what was a clear loophole in F1’s racing guidelines highlights Verstappen’s nous.
Sure, those guidelines are changing for 2025, and this time Verstappen heads into a campaign without arch-rules expert Jonathan Wheatley. But he’s already braced for a stiff contest and, given adaptation is already a part of his diverse racing arsenal, it would be unwise to expect him not to sufficiently alter his approach. Once he sheds some penalty points in June, there will no longer be such a massive risk to his title hopes via a ban in what should be a thrilling season…
Max will be Max – Stuart Codling
It is a truth universally acknowledged by all on the sadism spectrum, from the composer of the We Buy Any Car ad jingle to Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada himself, that every person has their breaking point.
So, while Max Verstappen, in common with other greats, has amply demonstrated a capacity to coolly read and respond to his rivals’ actions, at some juncture Max is gonna Max. And we know what that looks like.
Verstappen’s breaking point migrates like the RB20’s aerodynamic centre of pressure. There are times when he is imperious under duress, as in last season’s Qatar Grand Prix when he not only spotted and obeyed the pivotal yellow flag while juggling multiple inputs, but he also observed the evidence that Lando Norris hadn’t lifted for it. And yet there have been other occasions where temper spasms have clouded his judgement in high-stakes races, such as the 2021 Italian GP.
The fact is that Verstappen is two Abu Dhabi Turn 1s away from a race ban – and if the two penalty points applied there seemed harsh (like the points that triggered Kevin Magnussen’s absence from Azerbaijan last year), get used to it because that’s how the FIA now rolls. New race director Rui Marques has been hawkish thus far, ditto the stewards, against a background of much debate about driving etiquette.
Chances are that in 2025 penalty points will be distributed with the same largesse as prizes on a school sports day.
System is the problem – Mark Mann-Bryans
Opening up the debate slightly, the penalty points system itself in F1 is so flawed that it’s as difficult to predict a Max Verstappen penalty as it is for England to score them from 12 yards on a football pitch.
Take Kevin Magnussen as an example – as we have to given his race ban was the first to occur from accruing 12 penalty points… A seemingly nondescript incident with Pierre Gasly at the Italian Grand Prix led to the Dane reaching the dirty dozen needed to trigger the suspension.
It led to plenty of criticism from drivers, Magnussen unsurprisingly leading the way by claiming doling out points for such minor details was “restricting racing”, and calling for much more trust to be placed in the drivers themselves.
A penalty system is the right way for F1 to operate, to keep drivers in check. Time penalties and grid demotions are strong enough deterrents for a specific race weekend, but marking a driver’s FIA superlicence offers a more long-term control on any misdemeanours.
Verstappen could be hit with a ban for running a rival off the road, but equally could pick up penalty points for minor transgressions that could impact on a title fight come the end of another 24-race season.
Addressing the penalty point system would render this debate all but redundant, because we would know exactly what Verstappen would need to do to rack up enough for a ban rather than the grey area being as large as a run-off at Turn 12 at Austin.
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