Max Verstappen has labelled for F1 rules to chance after Carlos Sainz was handed a penalty at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The Spaniard was forced to replace lots of parts on his Ferrari after hitting a loose drain cover, meaning that he was penalised for changing too many parts on his car throughout the season.
Sainz’ penalty has caused uproar, and Verstappen is the latest star to jump to the defence of his rival, saying: “The rules have to change for that. I mean, it’s the same if you get taken out and you have a big accident, you can lose parts of the engine, energy store, all these kind of things.
“First of all, that needs to change. These things can be taken into consideration that if you can take a free, let’s say, penalty or not, it will not be counted. And besides that I think the teams should not be allowed to have a say in these kind of things. Because for sure, they’re going to vote against that,” he continued. Personally I do think it’s very harsh on Carlos. But in this political environment that we are in, of course every team thinks about themselves and of course they’re going to say ‘yes take the penalty.’”