F1 steward Johnny Herbert has questioned Max Verstappen's slip into a “horrible” mindset when racing rivals.
Last week at the Mexico City Grand Prix, Verstappen clashed with title rival Lando Norris twice in three corners with the latter running off the track on both occasions.
Verstappen was handed two 10-second time penalty for the incidents, one week after he battled Norris in the USA - on that occasion, Norris was penalised for overtaking the Dutchman off the track.
Verstappen has long held a reputation of being aggressive on the track - a mindset that Herbert disagrees with.
“I am such a big fan of Verstappen and it frustrates me massively when he drives the way he did in Mexico,” Herbert told Action Network.
“He doesn’t need to do it, he’s so good in the cockpit and at this point in the championship, he just needs to stay out of trouble and drive as well as possible.
“When Verstappen goes into this horrible mindset of trying to gain an advantage by taking a fellow driver off the race track so Ferrari can get the one-two, that where Verstappen needs to know he doesn’t have to do that. Just win in the cleanest possible way you can.”
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Herbert predicts Verstappen will not change
Herbert, who is a former F1 driver himself, will be back stewards' room at this weekend's Sao Paolo Grand Prix.
Despite the hefty penalties being dealt Verstappen's way in Mexico, Herbert doubts it will cause the 27-year-old to change his ways.
“Those penalties in Mexico won’t stop Max Verstappen from pushing Lando Norris off the track in the future,” he said.
“The whole intention of Verstappen was to try to let Ferrari get the one-two finish.
“I think that’s definitely what Verstappen intended and tried to achieve, I understand why he did it but I don’t agree with it, I don’t think many people do.
“‘Fair racing’ is something Norris has mentioned before, and that’s the type of fight he wants to have.
“I don’t see Verstappen’s driving changing because the number one goal is to stop Norris from closing the gap for the drivers' championship. We potentially still have a lot of interesting racing coming our way.”
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TMW
This is outrageous. A steward's job is to understand the rules, determine if they've been violated, and apply the appropriate penalty. The driver's "mindset" has absolutely nothing to do with it. However you feel about Max, Herbert has shown that he's no longer an impartial judge.
DickT
And a man like Herbert, with this openly negative opinion about Max Verstappen, will be steward in Brasil again... If FIA wants to prevent ppl thinking negative about the stewards dicisions they better not have a jerk like Herbert be acting steward again.
Robson Coimbra
How a commissioner or judge will judge with an opinion formed about the defendant. It would be illegal in a fair court, but in the FIA ?
rmctague
It's a huge conflict of interest for a man like Herbert, who is also a commentator for Sky1 news is also a steward. He should be forced to choose one or the other. He has no business being both. Quoting him on here is also inappropriate.