Stewards: 'No further action' on Verstappen after qualifying

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Max Verstappen will keep his second place grid spot for Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix.

Race stewards decided to take no further action against the Red Bull driver over an incident with Valtteri Bottas in Q3.

The Finn complained that Verstappen had been 'dawdling' through turn 12 which forced the Mercedes off line into the next corner. Bottas locked up and was unable to complete his hot lap.

"He was just going slowly at the exit of turn 12 and compromised my line a little bit for turn 13 and I had a lock-up there," he said.

"It ruined my lap and I only had one attempt in qualie 3 instead of two."

Verstappen insisted there had been no incident as far as he was concerned. "I was on the inside, he was just doing his line, and he locked up. So here is no incident.

"It's his own problem, isn't it, if he out brakes himself in the next corner?" said Verstappen, who ran foul of the stewards last week at the US Grand Prix.

This time however the stewards took his view.

Vettel snatches pole from Verstappen in Mexico

"The Stewards examined multiple angles of video evidence and radio calls to car 33 and heard from Max Verstappen, the driver of car 33, Valtteri Bottas, the driver of car 77 and the team representatives," said the stewards' official notice on the matter.

"The driver of car 33 was clearly aware from the team radio and using his mirrors that car 77 was approaching on a hot lap.

"He moved from the racing line on the exit of turn 12 to avoid impeding to car 77.

"The driver of car 33 did move slowly from the racing line which could have affected car 77, but the Stewards do not consider this as impeding."

As a result, the official finding was that "No further action" was required.

It means Verstappen will start Sunday's race from second place on the grid. He was pipped to pole position by 0.086s by Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.

If he had succeeded in winning pole, then Verstappen would have broken Vettel's record for the youngest pole winner in Formula 1 history.

Vettel was 21 years and 72 days old when he started from pole in the 2008 Italian Grand Prix. Verstappen turned 20 at the end of September, just 28 days ago.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.