McLaren “don’t want to see another 2021” as Max Verstappen concern raised

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has called on the F1 stewards to review how they judge incidents after Max Verstappen’s 10-second time penalty had no impact on his final race result.

Verstappen was hit with a penalty after he was deemed to be responsible for the high-profile incident with McLaren’s Lando Norris on Lap 64.

The Dutchman moved slightly left under braking, colliding with Norris’ car.

The contact left both drivers with a puncture and forced them to trundle back to the pit lane.

Despite the penalty, Verstappen remained in fifth ahead of Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg, while Norris - the innocent part - was out of the race due to significant car damage.

Speaking to media including Crash.net after the race in Austria, Stella explained why the stewards need to analyse the penalties they give out.

“That’s a tricky one,” he said. “That’s a tricky one because if the stewards elected that the 10 seconds was an appropriate penalty they - to some extent - go by their rulebook.

“So it’s complex, because sometimes the outcome can by minor, sometimes it can be big like in this case with a car taken out and with the other car heavily compromised. I don’t want to be in a position where I make everything simple and say everything was clear. Things sometimes are complex, they deserve enough reflection.

“I think the 10 seconds as a matter of fact today was ineffective and we have the driver that we are trying to catch in the classification that gained 10 points. It definitely deserves a reflection. I’m sure the FIA will approach today, like I said before, as an episode which gives us a richness of cases that should be analysed and think ‘how do we move forward?’.”

Stella stressed the need to avoid having another 2021-style season where Verstappen’s aggressive driving against Lewis Hamilton often went unpunished - or least the penalties weren’t severe.

“Because we don’t want to see another 2021,” he added. “I thought that was not a good point in Formula 1 racing. It might have been entertaining, but not for the good reasons.”

Stella revealed that McLaren were forced to retire Norris’ car due to significant damage to the floor and bodywork.

He explained: “That’s what we did, and then we sort of assessed that the car was not in condition to continue because the bodywork was completely destroyed unfortunately. Not only the floor.”