By Alan Baldwin
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Formula One stewards set a precedent in punishing Max Verstappen in Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix and the penalties will change how drivers go racing, according to Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.
Red Bull’s triple world champion was handed two 10 second penalties for forcing his McLaren title rival Lando Norris off the track while defending and for going off and gaining an advantage.
In Texas a week earlier stewards backed Verstappen and penalised Norris, who passed around the outside after being forced off, but this time they ruled the champion — again on the inside — had erred.
“A driver will always push to the limit and when the rules — the execution of the rules or interpretation of the rules — allow a certain way of racing then a driver like Max is always going to exploit it,” said Wolff.
“And I think now there has been a new interpretation, execution of those regulations. I think it will change the way everybody races in the future,” added the Austrian. “You won’t see that any more.”
Wolff said drivers would have to accept the change.
“I believe that you’ve probably got to leave space on the outside of the corner if the car is next to you,” he explained.
“Braking late and dragging the other car out of the track whilst also driving off track, I think that’s not allowed any more.”
Red Bull boss Christian Horner disagreed and suggested the stewards and drivers needed to sit down together and find a solution.
Horner claimed Norris would not have made the corner under normal racing circumstances, given the late braking and speed he was carrying.
“The racing principles for years have been if you have the inside line, you dictate the corner,” he said.
“I think it’s just important that we don’t over-regulate into a point where you encourage a behaviour that is not within the guidelines, the principles of motor racing.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Michael Perry)
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