Max Verstappen penalty and possible race ban looms

Andrea Kimi Antonelli's DNF prompted a Safety Car which threw a spanner in the works for Verstappen, who stopped in the pits for tyres behind both McLarens, only to find out that the only tyre he had available was a set of hards, this did not go down well for Verstappen.

At the restart Verstappen did not have temperature in the tyres and nearly lost the car coming out of the final corner which brought Charles Leclerc alongside him and George Russell also sniffed a chance to improve his race position.

Going into Turn 1, Leclerc took the position from Verstappen, and Russell launched up the inside but the Dutchman took to the run off and kep the position ahead of Russell.

The instruction then came from the Red Bull Racing pitwall to Verstappen to let Russell through, which he appeared to do coming out of Turn 4, but heading into Turn 5, Verstappen seemed to go straight on without steering and smashing right into the side of Russell, which prompted a 10 second time penalty for the Dutchman and demoted him to P10.

The Dutchman is currently at 8 points on his license, and if the Stewards deem the incident as being a deliberate move, Verstappen could face serious consequences, such as a race ban.

Although is the Stewards see fit other disciplinary measures could be enforced.