Max Verstappen: F1 world champion walks penalty tightrope from Canadian GP to avoid race ban
10 June 2025, 16:42 | Updated: 12 June 2025, 18:50
This weekend's Canadian Grand Prix marks the first of two consecutive races when F1 world champion Max Verstappen will walk a penalty tightrope after the contentious events of the last race in Spain.
While the 10-second end-of-race penalty that the Red Bull driver received from stewards for colliding with George Russell's Mercedes cost him an immediate and - potentially crucial - nine points in the world championship by dropping him from fifth to 10th in the classification, the further sting in the tail were the three penalty points they added to his F1 super licence.
The significance of that additional sanction was that it moved Verstappen on to 11 points for the last 12-month period - one away from triggering an automatic one-race ban under F1's regulations.
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