Verstappen's penalty justified? 'First reaction: Hamilton made a mistake'

The reactions after Max Verstappen received a grid penalty of three spots for his crash with Lewis Hamilton in Monza were still divided. Most thought it was a racing incident, but the stewards had a different opinion. Steward Peter Oord gives his opinion.

In the NOS Formula 1 Podcast Oord says that he first thought of a penalty for Hamilton, but after reviewing the images he decided otherwise.

"My first reaction was: Hamilton makes a mistake. But that's also the danger. You start looking too quickly based on very limited footage of 'what is my opinion on this?'"

Stewards need time

Making a decision straight away can be dangerous and result in the wrong decision being made. This is what the stewards did last weekend: take their time.

"If you go back and look at what's been analysed and written down, I think they made a pretty good decision. Whether I agree with that is another matter, but I didn't sit at the table with the gentlemen either."

Oord explains code of driving conduct

That's what they also look at when determining penalties. "That's basically what you can and cannot do on the track. Based on that, you can actually always quickly find a small article on which you can base the decision. But it's not really about which rule you use to determine the penalty. It's more about who had the greatest opportunity to prevent the incident."

According to the stewards that was Verstappen, who will therefore move three places backwards before the race in Russia next week. The question is whether the Dutchman will then also immediately take his penalty for taking his fourth engine of the season.