Max Verstappen wants answers to ‘messy’ track limits debacle ahead of Emilia Romagna GP

Italian Grand Prix: Preview lap of Formula One track

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Max Verstappen says he will address the controversial track limits issues that denied him a win at the Bahrain Grand Prix, the opening round of the 2021 Formula One season.

The Dutchman says he will raise the concerns in the driver briefing ahead of the Emilia Romagna GP, after calling Bahrain a ‘messy’ situation.

Verstappen was forced to give Lewis Hamilton back the lead of the race in the closing stages, as it was deemed the Dutchman exceeded track limits at turn 4.

However, throughout the race, many other drivers had taken that exact line and not faced a penalty, despite not actually gaining an advantage by leaving the track, including Hamilton who even had his race engineer Peter Bonnington on the radio warning him against running wide at turn 4.

At the time Michael Masi, the Formula One race director, insisted there had not been any change in how track limits were enforced.

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However, Verstappen was left baffled by the rules.

“Either you can go wide or not,” said Verstappen. “I can understand of course with my overtake outside of the track limits that’s not allowed, so that’s fine – you cannot gain an advantage by going wide, by overtaking – so why are you allowed to do it on your own?

“That’s what I think is not correct, so we’ll talk about that with the drivers and also with Michael [Masi, FIA Race Director] about it, but yeah we’ll see what comes out of it. I think it was a little bit messy in the race.

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“I think everything before that was very strict and I think good, how we handled everything, but definitely in the race I mean, I think for 30 laps or something Lewis was going wide and you gain time there and then I tried it for two laps and then they told me not to, so it’s a bit odd.”

Masi maintained it was made “very clear” that any driver overtaking off track would have to give their place back, and “nothing changed at all” in regard to track limits during the first race.

However, Verstappen said he had an idea for solving the issue.

He said: “Well, you know things can be easily resolved if you just put a wall there, or gravel. It will help a lot because in qualifying we had to stay on the kerb so that’s also what I was doing in the race, and just to be clean. I heard Lewis was just going wide so then I did it for two laps, but then I was not allowed to do it anymore, so I don’t think you should be able to change it in the race.”

The battle between Hamilton and Verstappen continues this weekend in Imola, with Hamilton leading the way in the driver’s standings thanks to the win in Bahrain.

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