Surprise at stewards' decision: 'Surprised that Verstappen got away that one'

Palmer started: “Turn 4, not really an overtaking place, but Max didn't mind. He gave it a go anyway. Down the inside of Lewis into this corner. Very, very close between the two. Thought it was going to be contact, but Hamilton bails out of it off the road on the outside, and Verstappen says, 'Thanks very much, I'll take the place then'."

The stewards looked at the incident, but ultimately decided not to penalise Verstappen. However, Palmer said: “I was surprised that Verstappen got away with this one, really, because it did look to me like it was a case of forcing another driver off the road. Clearly, Hamilton, if he had stayed on the track, would probably have been popped upside down or sent into the barriers at high speed. So it was a really aggressive pass, but ultimately there was no contact here. So it was a difficult case. It was not causing a collision. Was he forcing a driver off the road? I think he was."

After the race, Verstappen said he was disappointed that he had to report to the stewards. According to the Red Bull Racing driver, the people who were to decide whether he would get a penalty should have analysed this during the race itself.

Palmer shares this opinion, but according to him, this would not be in Verstappen's advantage: "If you take this case as an example, a 10-second penalty for Verstappen after the Grand Prix wouldn't have made any difference whatsoever. A 10-second penalty for him in the Grand Prix, if the stewards could make the decision, would have actually meant he had to sit at the pits for a longer time, drop back into traffic, and it would have changed his outcome, even if the penalty was exactly the same."