Qatar GP: Max Verstappen stripped of pole, demoted to second - ESPN

Max Verstappen has been stripped of his pole position at the Qatar Grand Prix after he was penalised one place on the grid for an incident in the final part of Saturday's qualifying session.

The stewards' decision means Mercedes driver George Russell will start from pole position for the second race weekend in a row, with Verstappen lining up second.

Verstappen was penalised for «driving unnecessarily slowly», a breach of Article 33.4 of the sporting regulations, as he prepared for his pole position lap.

By driving slowly on the racing line, he forced Russell to take evasive action as the Mercedes driver also prepared for his final Q3 attempt.

Russell came across the slow-moving Red Bull in Turn 12 and dipped a wheel in one of the gravel strips as he adjusted his line to drive around the outside of Verstappen, who was on the racing line.

In order to prevent big speed differentials between cars in qualifying, the race director at each event sets a maximum lap time delta that drivers must remain within, which Verstappen had exceeded.

Neither driver was on their actual qualifying lap, but Russell was driving much faster than Verstappen in order to prepare his tyres for his flying lap, while the Red Bull driver was attempting to cool his tyres ahead of his run.

«Car 1 [Verstappen] was on a different preparation strategy to that of Car 63 [Russell],» the stewards said in a statement. «Car 1 was well outside of the delta and the driver of Car 1 explained he had let Cars 4 [Lando Norris] and 14 [Fernando Alonso] past.

»The driver of Car 63 claimed that he had adhered to the delta and did not expect Car 1 to be on the racing line. He stated that if a car was going slow in a high speed corner, it should not be on the racing line.