Verstappen faces race ban, Could this be the end of his Formula 1 career?

20:10, 08 Jun

Updated: 20:11, 08 Jun

bySavannah Lenz

Max Verstappen is very close to a race ban. If he receives one more penalty point, he will miss a Grand Prix. Current Formula 2 driver Sebastian Montoya, son of Juan Pablo Montoya, believes that if this were to happen, Verstappen would leave Formula 1 and not return.

Verstappen currently has 11 penalty points on his super license. If he hits 12 points before the end of June, he will have to serve a race ban. This comes after a collision with George Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix.

After the Canadian Grand Prix, comes Red Bull Racing's home race, the Austrian Grand Prix. Worst case scenario is that Verstappen receives a penalty point in Montreal and misses the Spielberg-based Grand Prix.

Montoya said on the MontoyAS podcast that he believes "if Max is banned for a race, Max would say, 'well, I'm leaving,' and not come back."

Could Verstappen leave F1?

Former F1 driver, Juan Pablo Montoya, disagrees: "I don't know what's going to happen there. I don't think he won't come back because he has a contract and he has to do it. But the organisers and Formula 1, it's very different when you penalise someone like Magnussen, who is behind on the grid and is, without disrespect, like a filler."

He also thinks that, regardless of McLaren's current dominance, Verstappen still has a chance at his fifth title.

"People from outside see it like that. But if you don't take the world champion to the race, what are you going to do? Do you understand? how people are going to react? How are they going to sabotage the race? I think that's something that I wouldn't be surprised if they change the rules surrounding that before it happens."

Criticism of the FIA's policy

Juan Pablo then goes on to share his criticism of the FIA. He said, "I think those are the things that the FIA does, they come up with rules and they never think it will happen until it does, and then they don't know what to do."

"I think that when they don't penalise him, or when they change the penalty but against Magnussen, they can get in a legal conflict. Because Magnussen got parked because of it. On the sporting side they have to penalise him, on the racing side... it's a major headache I don't wish on anyone."

This article was written in collaboration with Marnik Kok.