Champion or no champion? When he got out of the car in the closed park of Suzuka (Japan), Max Verstappen (Red Bull) still did not know if his thirty-second career victory would be enough or not to definitively validate his second world crown in Formula 1.
In addition to the confusion surrounding the case of Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – the Monegasque crossed the finish line in second position before being downgraded to third place due to a five-second penalty for having bypassed the chicane in the last lap of the race – the Dutchman did not know how many points the race management was going to award him at the end of a Japanese Grand Prix reduced to 29 short loops.
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The rule that the full allocation of points is not effective when less than 75% of the total distance of the race has been covered, the spearhead of the Austrian team would, in theory, have had to wait a few more weeks to celebrate his second premier class world title.
Awarded 12.5 points last year (half the normal scale) for his victory in Belgium in a race entirely contested under safety car conditions and limited (officially) to one lap, Max Verstappen (Red Bull ) this time collected 25 full and complete points while the pilots barely exceeded half of the 53 laps initially scheduled for this Sunday.
The famous article 6.5
When the race resumed, everyone imagined applying one of the three relief scales created by the FIA following the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, in order to no longer end up with half points in the standings.
These three intermediate systems depend on the actual distance run, and are valid for less than 75% of that planned:
- From 2 laps at 25% of the distance: 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 points
- From 25% to 50% of the distance: 13, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points
- From 50% to 75% of the distance: 19, 14, 12, 9, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1 points
Simply, the FIA forgot to communicate that these systems were valid for a race stopped with a red flag. And the stoppage of the Japanese Grand Prix, in the third lap, added to the confusion.
Titled in chaotic circumstances on and off the track, Max Verstappen simply benefited from the strict application of article 6.5 of the FIA regulations, which only applies to a neutralized race that does not resume. Eduardo Freitas, the race director, therefore applied the usual scale, valid when a race exceeds 50% of its distance. All the points were therefore given to the first ten in this 18th meeting of the season.
With 25 points scored once morest the only 15 units collected by his rival Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Max Verstappen (Red Bull) leaves Suzuka with a lead (113 points) now unrecoverable for the leader of the Scuderia, four races remaining still to be played for a maximum total of 112 points in play.
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