Toto Wolff believes a new standard is emerging in Formula 1 – with the time penalties imposed on Max Verstappen during the Mexican GP, the Mercedes team boss expects that drivers will no longer be pushed off the track in the future. For Wolff, it’s clear that the FIA is working on a new way of racing, where stricter action is taken against reckless driving behavior.
Max Verstappen received two ten-second time penalties for his last duel with Lando Norris. The Dutchman is said to have deliberately pushed his title rival off the track. “A driver will always push the rules to the limit,” Toto Wolff said after the race in Mexico City. “Especially someone like Max (Verstappen) will always interpret the rules in a certain way, so that he can make optimal use of them.”
‘The New Normal’
According to Wolff, the fact that the stewards penalized Verstappen so heavily illustrates that a change is coming. “The way everyone races will change,” he explained. “Situations where drivers can interpret the rules at their discretion are a thing of the past. We won’t see that anymore. The stewards have decided that the drivers will no longer push each other off the track. That is now the new normal. Everyone knows that from now on you will have to pay for it with a time penalty of five or even ten seconds.”
The Austrian finally looked back on the period when Mercedes raced against Verstappen. “I think certain stewards had a different opinion at the time,” he explained. “Because this kind of behavior was not punished then, it was effectively legitimized. As a result, it was normal to have a driver who uses all margins and sets the guidelines to his advantage,” he defended Verstappen.
