Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen doesn’t think it’s fair that Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc only received a fine in the Germany GP when his team let the Monegasque driver go at the wrong moment during a pit stop.

In the end, it made no difference to Charles Leclerc, because the German GP had ended for the Ferrari star after just 27 laps when the youngster made his mistake, taking his Ferrari into the barriers.

Verstappen and Leclerc’s ‘incident’ at the Austrian Grand Prix

After a tyre change, his Ferrari team let him go at the wrong moment, which led to a dangerous situation, requiring Haas driver Romain Grosjean to instantly react to avoid a potentially lethal incident in the pits.

The team was fined 5,000 euros, instead of a time penalty for Leclerc and it did not go down well with the other drivers and paddock in general. Stewards made comment on their decision by saying that Leclerc drove out at an acute angle to avoid a tyre changer in the adjacent pit.

Conversely, Verstappen was handed a five-second penalty for an unsafe release back in May after he collided with Bottas in Monaco, costing the Dutchman a podium.

“If they (teams) would get a fine (and not a time penalty), everybody would do it,” he said.

“I think it’s not fair. To say that then they gave me that penalty only purely because I touched, I think that’s also not fair, You are still releasing the car knowing that there is a car in the fast lane.

“Just a fine, it’s not fair…the fine? 5,000? I mean, it’s peanuts for a team. They really don’t care to pay that. I think it’s completely wrong to do that, especially if you talk about safety. Not correct.”

5 wins for Honda Red Bull?

Meanwhile, Verstappen seems to now think that there could be more wins to come before the end of this season, stating that Helmut Marko’s prediction of five wins for Red Bull is now ‘Possible’.

Before the 2019 season started, Marko was confident that despite using the Honda power unit for the first time, that Red Bull was going to take victories in its first season with the Japanese manufacturer – “We will win at least five races”. claimed Marko.

“I spoke to him about that and I was like, ‘Oof, Helmut, it’s quite optimistic, five victories in the first year working together with Honda’,” Verstappen told Formula 1’s official website.

“Because you know, at the end of the day, you have to get to know each other more and you learn more and more every single race together.

“But as soon as we won the first one, then of course Helmut was like, ‘I think we can get to five’ and I was like ‘okay’.

“It’s not bad to have won one, and now of course we’ve won two, so knowing that normally in the second half, we improve even more with updates to the car, it’s possible, I think.

“Hopefully, we can just close the gap to Mercedes, and even Ferrari of course – in qualifying they’re still very fast – to always be there, because then you have a lot more opportunity to win.

“But at the end of the day, there are 21 races and I want to win all 21, not just five. But we’re working on it and I think we’re getting better every weekend.”

Abiteboul says Hulkenberg has mental issues, will be dropped?

learly, Renault team boss Cyril Abiteboul had trouble digesting Nico Hulkenberg’s crash at the German Grand Prix last Sunday.

The Renault driver was fighting for his very first podium, but after a driving error on a wet track, the German went into the wall, retiring from the race. The words chosen by Abiteboul are strong, and are certainly not insignificant in the midst of discussions about the future of German at Renault.

“It’s a tough sport, very tough. We could have had a nice light on a season that is very complicated for us. It could have been very encouraging. Now, honestly, what we need is………….. READ MORE

Renault admits trick DRS increases HP & disclose total power output

You know I hate doing these types of articles, but sometimes a very juicy story appears on my favourite German F1 and Motorport website Auto Motor und Sport, I don’t have time to regurgitate it with my opinion thrown in, so I just translate it for you, the valued TJ13 reader.

In essence, the Renault team have admitted their exact…… READ MORE