Furious Verstappen blasts race director for deleting times

The pole-sitter for the Austrian Grand Prix Max Verstappen didn’t hide away his anger at race director Niels Wittich for deleting 47 lap times during the Austrian qualifying session.

Verstappen himself was a victim of that policy with 4 of his lap times deleted, despite the Dutchman clinching pole at the end. In his frustration the 25-year-old said that the rules Wittich is implying is making F1 drivers look like “amateurs”.

‘It was very silly. It made us look like amateurs with the amount of laps that were being deleted. And some of them were so marginal.’ Verstappen said.

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‘We spoke in the briefing before about how to deal with it if it was impossible to judge – yet the laps were still getting deleted.’

It proved costly for the other Red Bull driver Sergio Perez, who saw his last Q2 lap time deleted, dropping him down to P15 and essentially ruining his weekend.

Verstappen will aim for his 42nd victory in his career on Sunday, which will put him one in front of the legendary Ayrton Senna.