Tag: penalty

With his title lead over Lewis Hamilton down to eight points from 21 just over a week ago, Max Verstappen says Red Bull will “just try to be better, and come back strong” for debut event in Jeddah; Outside chance for Verstappen to wrap up title next week to avoid final-round decider

Max Verstappen says Red Bull will focus on trying to come back stronger to hit back against Mercedes at next week’s Saudi Arabian GP after a second successive defeat by Lewis Hamilton.

Meanwhile, the Dutchman said “I never get presents from them” in reference to the stewards after he was handed a five-place grid penalty ahead of Sunday’s race for failing to slow sufficiently for double-waved yellow flags at the end of qualifying.

Impressively recovering to second place in the race behind runaway winner Lewis Hamilton and now holding an advantage of just eight points ahead of his Mercedes driver with 52 to play for over the season’s concluding double-header, Verstappen said: “It’s exciting.

“I would of course have liked to make it a bigger gap, but when you don’t have the pace, it’s impossible to do that, so we’ll just try to be better, and come back strong, especially in Saudi on the street track, and then yeah, we’ll see in Abu Dhabi.”