Verstappen speaks out on F1 compromise: 'It's all politics'

If the Barcelona weekend can be summed up so far, it’s mostly about rules. At the start of the race week there was plenty of attention on ADUO; with Red Bull Ford classified as having the strongest internal combustion engine. As a result, Verstappen’s team cannot implement a power unit update, while the dominant Mercedes team can.

Red Bull has urged the FIA to analyze the data again, hoping the new engine manufacturer will ultimately not be ranked as the top of the field. On Saturday afternoon in blistering-hot Barcelona, Verstappen didn’t dare say which way things were heading for Red Bull. “I don’t know. We’ll see. Hard to say at the moment,” he told GPblog among others when speaking to Dutch media.

The Dutchman was a bit more outspoken about the agreed change to the power distribution in the engines for 2027 and 2028. It will be 58/42 next year in favor of the internal combustion engine. Verstappen had previously stated that 60/40 was the minimum ratio to achieve better racing. It seems to be a small difference between what was desired and what was agreed upon.

GPblog asked why it couldn’t be 60/40—something all drivers were hoping for. “It’s all politics. It’s all to do with other engine manufacturers. That’s why. It’s not so easy in Formula 1 to get everyone moving in the same direction,” said the Dutchman.

Verstappen acknowledged that this can cause irritation among drivers. “Unfortunately, that’s always been the case. With the previous rules too. Everyone is of course trying to have their own advantage.” When it was finally suggested that this seems like a compromise for the sake of having a compromise, Verstappen first sighed. Then he said: “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

This season, Verstappen will in any case have to make do with an engine that relies more on the battery than what he has hoped for. On a circuit like the one near Barcelona, energy management is quite tricky. “You have to be careful in certain places,” said Verstappen. “I have to say that here it might have been fairly okay. But yes, it can be better of course. You do get used to it, naturally. You’d obviously prefer something else. But hopefully next year that will already help a bit. Well, there’s nothing else I can make of it. I can hardly just stay at home.”

The biggest news of the weekend also concerned rules and came about thanks to the stewards. They ruled that Pierre Gasly was retroactively classified as third after the Monaco Grand Prix. The stewards saw that the Alpine driver had not sped in the pit lane, so his five-second penalties was reversed. As a result, Isack Hadjar was demoted to fourth place.

Verstappen had a cautious opinion on that: “Alpine challenged it and other teams didn’t. I understand that other teams then think: ‘Yeah, why didn’t we?’ It was of course the same issue most of them had. I get that it feels a bit strange for other teams.”

With that, the stewards seem to have created a dangerous precedent, because it can be lucrative not to serve a penalty during the race and to file a case after. “George didn’t serve it the first time, that’s why he got that drive-through. But if at the first moment the measurements are wrong, that’s the biggest problem,” Verstappen concluded.