McLaren boss demands ‘immediate’ change from FIA after Verstappen controversy

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has claimed that the FIA needs to take ‘immediate action’ after his drivers were affected by the pit lane antics of Max Verstappen and George Russell during qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix.

Verstappen and Russell were both placed under investigation at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Saturday for stopping at the end of the pit lane. Both drivers were attempting to create a gap for themselves in order to complete their out-laps without dipping below the minimum lap time allowed.

This move proved unpopular with the FIA as well as other team principals and drivers with both Verstappen and Russell called to the stewards after the conclusion of qualifying. Frustratingly for their rivals, no penalties were handed out to either driver.

Verstappen has already landed himself in hot water for a similar incident this season. The 26-year-old was called to the stewards for holding up both Mercedes drivers in the pit lane in Singapore, but once again he escaped with just a caution. 

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Making his thoughts known about the incident, Stella said: “I think immediate action needs to be taken. It’s not a good spectacle. It makes the operations very difficult because you send your car and you actually don’t know when your car is going to get on track.  

“It puts all drivers too much at the mercy of the other drivers. And this for me starts to be unfair. We need to create policy aspects and ruling aspects to control the situation, which I think is just inappropriate.”

Lando Norris was also unimpressed by the reigning world champion’s antics. His qualifying was turned upside down after an initial mistake was compounded when he was forced to back out of a following run. The British driver ended Q1 19th in the standings with only Logan Sargeant behind him.

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“I think it’s something again that we’ve said is going to happen, is going to be problematic,” Norris stated. “Before you didn’t see too many bad scenarios, now you’ve seen some worse scenarios, because people are wanting the gaps to be even bigger.  

“Everyone’s kind of pushing the limits more and more because you can get away with it. And because no one’s been penalised for anything, even when people have been in the wrong or should have been penalised, people are just doing massive gaps now.” 

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