Why was Max Verstappen not penalized for impeding Lewis Hamilton? Real reason explored

There was a slightly controversial incident between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton during the SQ1 session on Saturday, July 1.

Both drivers impeded each others laps in their final run of the session but it was not investigated by the stewards and the FIA. While completing his timed lap, Max Verstappen claimed that he lost around four-tenths when he was impeded by Hamilton.

In a scenario described by Mercedes team prinicpal Toto Wolff as 'revenge foul', the two-time world champion then subsequently impeded Lewis Hamilton when he was starting his own timed lap. As per Autosport, neither Mercedes nor Red Bull reported the clash to race control.

Then, at no stage in sprint qualifying did the FIA timing and information system announce that their driving had been noted by race control and so sent on to the stewards to assess whether it warranted a full investigation.

The German team did mention the incident to the stewards but did not push for a penalty as it was aware that they were the ones who started the whole thing because of their lack of communication to their driver.

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Max Verstappen on the Lewis Hamilton SQ1 incident

The Dutch driver stated that he lost more in the whole situation as he had to break harder, which cost him lap time in the SQ1.

Max Verstappen said:

"He blocked me into the last corner, so I had to brake more and I lost like three-tenths. So that wasn’t ideal [and] I think not correct. But there were still a few seconds on the clock [and] I wasn’t sure that laptime was going to be safe, so I wanted to continue. But, yeah, [I] ran out of time and space with the two cars like that. Which was a bit of a shame."

While Toto Wolff added:

"Yeah so I think the mistake happened on our side – communication between us and Lewis, didn’t give him the right information to get out of Max’s way. And I think no one wants to be in anybody’s way because if you impede, you’re getting penalised. So, that was not the aim.

"On the other side, Turn 1 was a revenge foul. It was just to make sure that his [Lewis’s] lap was ruined. So, one was not intentional but the other one was intentional. But, who cares? At the end, we looked at it – was it going to change our race or not? But I think they’re gonna talk about it in the drivers’ briefing next week."

It will be interesting to see if Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton bring this up next week in the drivers briefing.