'Horner and Newey asked if choice FIA in Q3 was legal'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Max Verstappen had an excellent weekend in Miami, but that excellent weekend ended in Q3. The Dutchman made a mistake in his first run in the final qualifying session and was unable to start his final fast lap due to Charles Leclerc's crash. As a result, Verstappen will start the race in Miami from ninth position.
Verstappen looked to be faster this weekend than his teammate Sergio Perez, who is doing extremely well at Red Bull Racing this season. In the free practice sessions in Miami, the Dutchman was usually about three-tenths faster than the Mexican, but due to an error of the two-time world champion's own and some bad luck, Perez will still start from pole position, with Verstappen eight places behind.
FIA choice in Q3
When Leclerc crashed in Q3, there were about two minutes left on the clock. Yellow flags were waved immediately, of course, but the red flag did not follow until about 20 seconds later. As a result, the session was eventually halted with just over a minute and a half left on the clock.
The FIA then decided not to resume the final part of qualifying, which was particularly annoying for Verstappen. Due to his own mistake and this choice by the FIA, the Dutchman could not set a time in Q3. Ted Kravitz reports that Christian Horner and Adrian Newey had doubts about the legality of the decision.
"After the qualifying session, Horner and Newey were on the pit wall asking Wheatley, the rules man at RB, whether that was legit. Whether the race director could say the session wouldn't resume. Obviously they were happy Perez was on pole, if you were cynical you could say they wanted Verstappen on pole instead but I know they don't think that way," Kravitz said in Ted's Notebook on Sky Sports.