By Nyreen Laswad
Doha_ Verstappen won the eventful Qatar Grand Prix, a race that featured three Safety Car appearances, numerous incidents and a penalty for Lando Norris that dropped the British down the list after he was aiming to the lead.
Yesterday, after being hit with a one-place grid penalty by the stewards, Max Verstappen lost his pole position starting spot for the Qatar Grand Prix. This happened following an incident with George Russell during the final part of qualifying in Qatar.
“The Dutchman’s lap time was good enough to award him his first pole since the Austrian Grand Prix, but the stewards have opted to penalize him for driving unnecessarily slowly ahead of the Mercedes,” according to F1 web site.
The accident happened when the Red Bull man was on a slow lap as he built up for his final attempt in Q3 with the Russell’s Mercedes quickly catching up to him, the site reported.
The Mercedes driver, Russell, said: “I ended up going through the gravel all over the floor, so it felt like the floor was scraping over that kerb and through the gravel so I hope it didn’t damage it,” as quoted by FI web site.
“Maybe that’s the reason we didn’t improve – I don’t know, but it was a bit of a hairy one, two corners before we started the lap,” he added.