Sky F1 expert Damon Hill believes Max Verstappen lacks a fair racing philosophy in his repertoire in a scathing assessment of the Red Bull driver’s defense in Mexico.

Verstappen received two 10-second time penalties while racing with Lando Norris in Mexico, with stewards harshly criticizing the Red Bull driver for pushing Norris off the track at Turn 4 and, seconds later, going off the track and gaining a lasting advantage over his championship rival.

Damon Hill: Max Verstappen refuses to concede ground

Verstappen is trying to consolidate his championship lead to win the title with a Red Bull RB20 now incapable of victories, which has caused an extra layer of aggression from the reigning world champion – especially in fights with his rival for the Norris title.

It was the second moment of controversy between Verstappen and Norris in the space of a week following their battle in the United States, and 1996 F1 world champion Damon Hill shared his thoughts on the race in Mexico while that he appeared on the Sky F1 podcast.

“It was a five-second penalty in Austin for Lando. I think the commissioners clearly looked at the situation and thought there was so much pressure and so much discussion about all of this that maybe they felt they needed to apply something a little bit more punitive,” Hill said.

“In each case, they applied 10 seconds. So they felt that this driver had done something wrong twice and then applied a penalty and he got 10 seconds for each of them.

“Max’s problem is that he simply refuses to concede any ground to anyone when overtaking. So this is the situation.

Analyzing the Turn 4 incident, the first moment Verstappen received a 10-second penalty for, Hill said: “Coming out of Turn 4, he’s clearly heading to the edge of the track to prevent Lando from ‘have a chance to do it. all.

“The aerial footage is very clear to me, he didn’t try to back up and take the corner and give Lando space. It was simply, “You’re not succeeding. »

“And that’s OK, but is this what we want to see as a sport?

“I think there was some really good wheel-to-wheel action with Liam Lawson and Checo (Perez) – it got a bit more pushy and pushing but I don’t think it was a malicious attempt to prevent the ‘other person to overtake. They were trying to keep things together and they ran wheel to wheel.

“It’s the same with Lewis and George Russell, so it’s possible to race fairly and that’s something I’m not sure Max is capable of – it’s not in his repertoire. It’s not in his philosophy. His philosophy is: “You don’t go beyond the limits.”

Asked if Verstappen’s driving choices were purely down to his championship position and the dynamics of an increasingly tense fight, Hill replied: “That’s the challenge, isn’t it? isn’t it? They say that sport does not build character, it shows it, and its fault is to revert to preventative methods, rather than trying to keep it within the bounds of fairness.

“Now how do you define fairness? This is a hard question to define, but I really think you shouldn’t be allowed to use your car as a weapon and just block the track, because you won’t see any overtaking if you were allowed to allow people to just sneak around. everywhere and do what they wanted.

“You’ll never see a single pass, because everyone would stand there and say, ‘Well, there’s no point, because he’s going to take me out.’ What’s the point of trying?’

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Damon Hill Scores Turn 7 With “Dick Dastardly” Stuff

Moments after the Turn 4 incident, Verstappen dove on the inside of Norris on the medium-speed Turn 7 corner, with both drivers drifting away as the Red Bull failed to grip the track.

This allowed Charles Leclerc to squeeze through in both instances, with Verstappen retaining his position ahead of Norris – earning himself a further 10-second penalty for leaving the track and taking the lead.

“I think he was right to get a penalty,” Hill said.

“I don’t know if 10 seconds was the right penalty, but I definitely think the second move he made was just stupid. It was Dick Dastardly stuff.

“He just accelerated to the top and that stopped Lando, which seemed to give him the opportunity to retake the spot – Lando really didn’t have many options and they actually touched, so it was silly to drive.

“Max let himself go there. He has such genius and clearly such a competitive spirit, but I don’t think it’s anything to be proud of what he did there.

Verstappen’s actions came just days after a controversial defense in Austin worked in his favor as he stuck to the wording of the FIA ​​driving guidelines, although he also ran wide in defending against Norris.

As a result, Hill said the regulations are proving to be somewhat vague and the sport has taken the wrong direction by over-prescribing what is allowed and what is not.

“The question is: what’s in the regulations? And the regulations are a little murky. They are not very clear,” he said.

“That’s what’s frustrating for everyone because we look at this and, really, it shouldn’t be allowed, but if the rule says you have to be early at the top, then the other guy has to take off. .

“We had a lot of discussion about whether Lando, initially at Turn 4, had accelerated to get around Max on the outside, and then the question was, would Lando have made it through the corner?

“But that’s not the problem. The problem is the driver’s behavior on the track, and that’s something I don’t think can be defined scientifically or legally – it’s just the stewards’ point of view.

“This brings us back to another important issue, which concerns the role of pilot marshals. The driver stewards were initially recruited, which is a good idea, to bring in stewards, to help the stewards make a decision on driving matters that they had very little experience or knowledge about.

“The idea was to bring in drivers who have raced at that level, in Formula 1, and who were able to say: ‘When I look at this, I think it’s good or bad.’

“What has happened is that these driver stewards who were enlisted to advise the stewards have become stewards themselves, and so now they are bound by all the other regulations, jobs and responsibilities of stewards.

“They are therefore no longer pilot stewards as such. They are the same as the other stewards.

“Let’s say Martin Brundle was the one advising the stewards, he would say, ‘I don’t like the look of that,’ which he did at the grand prix. He would look at it and say, ‘No, that is not true. This cannot be true.

“We can also apply this view to talk about Lewis’ late change of direction when he was passed by George Russell on the straight and I have to say I saw that and just thought it was a bit naughty.

“Now, if you’re a steward, you have to try to make a decision, but if this driver who’s giving you his feedback and years and years of watching Grand Prix racing looks at that and says, ‘No, That’s really bad. This shouldn’t happen,” then it makes it much easier for you to make a decision.

“You don’t have to go through the language of the regulations, because once you go down that road, you’re lost.

“You’ll be here forever, and it’ll be a debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

“You’re just going to take the legal route.” This is where I think it went wrong. The more regulations you put in place, the more loopholes you create. So I think it’s a big can of worms.

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