Both Max Verstappen and Liam Lawson have been penalized for an incident in FP2 at the Mexico City Grand Prix
Both Max Verstappen and Liam Lawson have been given a one-place grid drop for this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix for an incident that occurred during the second practice session on Friday.
Early in the second hour of practice, the two drivers came together near Turn 12 on the track, with Verstappen on a prep lap and Lawson on a cooldown lap, preparing for another push lap. The two came very close to each other, and raced wheel-to-wheel from Turn 12 through Turn 14, making contact a few times.
You can see the incident in full here:
The contact between the two cars spread debris over the circuit, requiring a quick red flag to clear the track.
The incident was noted by race stewards for further investigation, and both drivers were summoned to meet with the stewards following FP2. According to the stewards’ decision, both drivers “admitted the moves were unnecessary and ‘clumsy.’”
As a result, the race stewards assessed a one-place grid drop for both Verstappen and Lawson. As the stewards noted, there have been “similar incidents this year of actions between drivers in Free Practice, the Stewards have decided to escalate the penalty from that of a formal warning to a grid position penalty particularly in view of the warning that had been provided at the Team Managers meeting and consistent with other incidents involving contact between the cars in Free Practice in previous years.”
You can see the full decision regarding Lawson here:
And here is Verstappen’s decision:
For his part, Verstappen questioned what Lawson was doing during the incident. Speaking with the media after FP2, he had this to say:
“Not very smart behavior, what he was trying to do there,” said Verstappen.
“At the end of the day, it’s not going to change my weekend, but if I were him, I would act a little bit smarter. Also, when you’re fighting for your seat, it’s a not very smart behavior.”
Verstappen finished FP2 with the fifth-fastest time, while Lawson finished ninth.
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