Max Verstappen took his fifth pole position in a row after a challenging qualifying session at the 2023 GP of Great Britain. During qualifying, the Mercedes team thought it saw a fault with Verstappen. The internet also dived into it, but nothing appeared to be wrong.

Verstappen overtakes under yellow

Indeed, Verstappen had overtaken Mercedes driver George Russell in the closing stages of Q1 of qualifying under the yellow flag. At least, it seemed so and that was what both Russell and Lewis Hamilton immediately said over the board radio. It was also noticed on the internet and many disgruntled tweets came online about the FIA taking no action.

The overtaking was not investigated and that angered Mercedes fans. The FIA was a target and people said they were blind. Red Bull was immediately accused of foul play. In the end, Mercedes and the fans turned out to be wrong. Yes, Verstappen had overtaken Russell, but there was no code yellow at the spot where it happened at the time.

Confusion at Silverstone track sections

The protests are somewhat understandable as it was a confusing situation. It looked as if Verstappen was overtaking under the yellow flag, but looking at the division of the track into lane sections, exactly on the section where Verstappen overtook there was nothing going on yet. However, some yellow flag signs were on, but the signs along the track only indicate the track conditions for the next lane section.

During the lap in question, there was yellow at turn four. At turn five, the signs were just not on. That means that when going up Wellington Straight, there was no yellow. At the end of that straight through all of turn seven, however, there was yellow. Verstappen overtook Russell on the first section of the straight, so there was nothing to worry about.