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Active F1 steward Derek Wawrick, who will be working at the this weekend, believes that 's 10-second time penalty at the Spanish Grand Prix last time out was a 'spot-on' decision by the . After being hung out to dry by Charles Leclerc on a safety car restart, Verstappen was left scrapping with George Russell for fourth place, while on inferior hard compound tyres.

The Mercedes racer attempted to follow the Ferrari man through, but couldn't complete the pass without sending the Red Bull driver off the road. When Verstappen merged back onto the track ahead of Russell, he was told by race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase to give the place back. Furious, the reigning world champion obliged momentarily, only to speed up and crash into the Mercedes driver on corner entry.

The stewards took a dim view of the contact, hitting Verstappen with a 10-second penalty and three penalty points. This dropped him from fourth to 10th in the classification and brought him to within one penalty point of an automatic one-race suspension, which would have a disastrous impact on his title hopes.

"I can see why Max Verstappen got angry, because I think he thought he was hard done by with Charles on the straight and I think he thought he was hard done by George," FIA steward Warwick told . "The team obviously then asked him to give the place back and he didn't think that was right and that led to the collision.

"I think everybody's got to realise that when you're a racing driver and you're used to winning like Max is, it's very difficult when things start going against you in a race that, on paper, with a three stop, looks like you might win, and we all know he's a winner. Should he have done what he did, in turn 5 with George Russell? Absolutely not. Did he get a penalty for it? Yes.

"He got 10 seconds and 3 points, which only brings him 1 point away from a race ban. So people are arguing that Vettel got a 10-second drive-through in Baku with Lewis Hamilton. But he intentionally drove into Lewis, whereas if you actually look at the video, it looks to me that although he dived in, he then did turn away from George, but the momentum carried him into George.

"I'm not condoning it, I'm not saying it's right, it's absolutely wrong, and the FIA quite rightly gave him a penalty. Should it have been harsher? I think they got it about right, actually. I think a lot of people would say he should have got a ban as an example to young karters and they are probably right, but I feel the penalty was spot on.

"You've got to look at each individual incident on their own merit. I thought it was very questionable. It's not what I like to see. I'm doing Canada now instead of Enrique, so I think I might be busy."