Max Verstappen Will Remain Forever Answerable For The Controversial 2021 Break-Testing! Was It Legal?

Max Verstappen is the one racer whom every racer on every team will be eager to beat. He is the current champion and holding the title two times on the trot. The Last season Verstappen was undoubtedly unbeatable. He won first place by a significant margin from the second-place winner, Charles Leclerc of Ferrari. Red Bull is fortunate to have a racer like this Dutchman. He is young and hungry to win more races, whether on the track or in the virtual world. Max Verstappen is very competitive and a passionate racer.

Having achieved so much already at such an early stage of his career, Verstappen is not free of criticism or controversy. What happened in the final race of 2021, which eventually helped the Dutchman win his maiden title, is and probably will forever be a matter of great debate. Whatever happened changed the dynamic of Formula One Motorsport drastically. Sir Lewis Hamilton was on his way to winning the ultimate coveted eighth title. What followed was confusion and collision that happened between Hamilton and Verstappen, denying the former the top tag.

The seven-time champ of Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton, shares the most number of titles with the German Legend Michael Schumacher. Winning the eighth could have made him statistically the GOAT of Formula One Motorsport. Another win for Hamilton meant another win for Mercedes. The hegemony of the Silver Arrows in Formula One Motorsport from 2014 could have continued till 2021.

It was the great F1 Austrian Legend Niki Lauda whose idea was to get Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes team. Finally, Hamilton joined the Silver Arrows in 2013. He came, and he conquered. Hence all of a sudden, when everything went topsy-turvy in the final lap of the 2021 race lot of questions and speculation were raised.

What Max Verstappen Actually Did Back In The 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix?

The Seven-time champ was about to overtake the Dutchman, but Max did not let the Briton do that by going off the track. After this illegal move of the Dutchman was noticed, the concerned officials ordered Max to slow down to let Lewis overtake him. According to the FIA law, in these cases, the driver will return the position to the other driver from whom he had wrongfully taken place.

When Lewis Hamilton was about to get back his position due to some misunderstanding, both the drivers crashed into each other. Hamilton claimed the Red Bull driver was brake-checking him directly. Horner and the team explained that Max Verstappen only tried to slow down to return the position to Hamilton. The officials later analyzed the whole event and noticed some unusual activities of the Verstappen\’s car on lap 37 and gave the Dutchman a penalty of 10 seconds.

History Of Brake-Testing In Formula One

It does not matter if Verstappen did a brake check intentionally or not. Either way, it is illegal. Brake checking, according to the governing body, FIA, is an erratic and dangerous thing to do. The drivers who do it can be fined on-track or off-track penalties as suited by the FIA.

Albeit this type of brake-testing is not anything new in F1 motorsport. Hamilton, who was at the receiving end in 2021, was the one to do it in 2017 when Sebastian Vettel was at the receiving end. Even Michael Schumacher did a brake check and collided with David Coulthard back in 1998.