I read the stewards’ document, then loaded Singapore. Out of turn 7, flying lap, accelerating. Yellow.
What the telemetry says, according to them: Verstappen was accelerating, then came off, and about 40 metres after entering the zone he had fully lifted. Ahead, Hamilton was braking, below 60 km/h. Before the decision, Laurent Mekies at Red Bull described him as being on a cool-down lap; the stewards stick to the braking and the speed. The pass happened before turn 8. He abandoned his lap afterwards.
I did it again this morning. Six times. I put a ghost at 60 ahead of me. Result: I pass too, every time. To avoid passing you have to stamp on the brakes, and then the sim tells me the car behind isn’t happy. Verstappen told the stewards the same thing: avoiding the overtake would have needed very heavy braking, potentially dangerous.
The figure that interests me is this one: at the point of the pass, he was doing about 70 km/h less than on his other fast lap of the session. Seventy. In my cockpit, that’s the gap between a lap and a stroll.
The stewards found the breach and did not penalise, because of the closing speed differential. The sim has no such box. Either you get a penalty or you don’t. The middle ground is an unmodelled variable. Like the wind.
The team confirms: at the Mariembourg kart track, closing speed is called “dad crossing with a sandwich”.
He keeps the Sprint pole, ahead of Russell and Leclerc. The decision took more than two hours. Me, an incident I review in four minutes, replay included. In theory.
It’s true, we checked: Formula1.com.
