Max Verstappen’s five-second penalty at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix may have cost him the win, but the incident has also reignited an important conversation about how Formula 1 handles in-race infractions—and whether time penalties are still the best approach.
While some agree the penalty was justified—Verstappen left the track and gained an advantage over Oscar Piastri—others argue that the way these penalties are enforced is hurting the sport.
“The five-second penalty was fair. A 10-second one would’ve been too much,” said Jon Noble on The Race F1 Podcast. “But what I really don’t like is this shift away from advising drivers to give positions back. I’d prefer if race control simply said, ‘You should return the place,’ and gave drivers a chance to fix it on track.”
That kind of direction used to come from the late race director Charlie Whiting, who would recommend giving a position back to avoid stewards’ involvement. While not perfect, it kept the racing fair without disrupting the spectacle as much as a post-incident penalty might.
Under the current system, however, decisions are increasingly left to the stewards—often after the moment has passed—leading to results like Jeddah, where a potential lead battle was cut short by a delayed, rigid penalty.
Podcast contributor Scott Mitchell-Malm offered a practical solution: allow stewards to order a position swap directly.
“If the stewards can tell drivers to give the place back—even after a lap or two—that would avoid a lot of the problems we see with time penalties,” he said. “If someone has gained a bigger advantage in the meantime, so be it. That’s racing. But at least it gives us a cleaner and more immediate remedy.”
Such an approach would also eliminate scenarios where time penalties disproportionately affect a driver’s final position. Take Melbourne 2023, for example, when Carlos Sainz was handed a five-second penalty in the final laps, dropping him from fourth to 12th due to the safety car. A position swap would have been far fairer.
Mitchell-Malm continued: “Time penalties are often too soft or too harsh. A position swap option would allow stewards to reset the field more accurately. Verstappen would’ve been right behind Piastri instead of driving under a penalty cloud.”
Another issue is that time penalties can be exploited. A faster car might benefit by forcing its way past, accepting a small penalty, and then building enough of a gap to neutralize it—especially if there’s no immediate instruction to give the place back.
“If Max had simply been told, ‘Give the position back,’ we wouldn’t be having this debate,” added Noble. “He’d be in second, possibly setting up a clean battle or trying an undercut. Instead, the result feels like a missed opportunity for better racing.”
Ultimately, this is a symptom of F1’s ever-tightening rules. While precision has its place, racing remains a fluid and dynamic sport. Sometimes, a more flexible approach is what’s needed—and that’s what figures like Whiting brought to the table.
The solution isn’t about removing penalties altogether, but rather adapting them to the context. Because in moments like Jeddah, what the sport needed wasn’t a stopwatch—it was a reset.