Max Verstappen responds to former Red Bull insider’s claim of ‘measured’ 50k fine

Said to have deliberately courted a €50k fine at the 2021 Brazilian Grand Prix in a battle of wits against Mercedes, Max Verstappen says it “didn’t happen that way”, although he doesn’t recall the exact scenario.

Verstappen won his first of four F1 World Championship titles in 2021, coming out on top in a tension-fraught season in which he and Lewis Hamilton went wheel-to-wheel for the title.

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Trading blows on the track, and their team principals trading verbal barbs away from it, the protagonists recorded 14 one-two results as momentum swung back-and-forth with Verstappen winning the title in a final lap shoot-out at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

He finished the season eight points ahead of Hamilton in the standings, but potentially a few pennies behind him as the Red Bull driver was slapped with a €50k fine at the Brazilian Grand Prix for touching the rear wing of Hamilton’s W12.

That weekend began with Hamilton qualifying P1 for the grand prix with Verstappen parking behind him in parc ferme only to, according to the FIA’s notes at the time, “put his right hand at the slot-gap of the rear wing of his car.

“He then moves to car 44 and repeats the exercise, touching the rear wing in two places, once on either side of the DRS actuation device, but on the bottom rear side of the wing, in the area of the slot gap and never near the actuator or the end fixation points.”

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While the stewards declared there was “no movement”, Verstappen was slapped with a €50,000 fine for breaching parc ferme regulations.

Verstappen lost the battle, but he won the war as Hamilton was disqualified from qualifying after he was referred to the stewards over a potential rear wing infringement. His DRS’s opening slot was found to be larger than the permitted 85mm.

Verstappen’s former performance coach Bradley Scanes has claimed it was deliberate from the Dutchman.

“Brazil is a good example [of the mind games] where Max went behind the Mercedes rear wing and was giving it a good feel,” he told the High Performance podcast.

“That was measured: he knew he was going to get a €50k fine and no impact on track.”

Asked if Verstappen had spoken about it before he touched the Mercedes rear wing, he replied: “Not [with] me personally, but in the team it was discussed.

“Even if nothing happened, [it would have been worth it],” he added. “I think there was a change. For the last two races, they couldn’t run that particular wing, so that was helpful in its own sense because they absolutely ran away with that Brazil race.

“But even if nothing happened, that would have just shifted the focus, put a little bit of pressure in the media on them.”

That was put to Verstappen as Formula 1 returned to action after the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.

Speaking with the media on Thursday, he was asked if that moment in Brazil had been “intentional” and a part of the season’s “mind games”.

He replied: “I can’t really recall that, to be honest.

“From my side, it didn’t feel like that. So, I can’t really say anything more about it because, for me, it didn’t feel like that or it didn’t happen that way.”

But according to Scanes, the mind games played that season were strong with everyone at Red Bull and Mercedes involved.

“Obviously the games between Toto [Wolff] and Christian [Horner] were always clear to see in the media,” he added.

“But then backstage, [in the] cooldown rooms between Max and Lewis or even Angela [Cullen, Hamilton’s trainer], [we] would kind of try and have a little go as well.”

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