Verstappen says 'everyone should be called up for pit lane impeding' if I am

Verstappen, Mercedes’ George Russell and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso are all facing a visit to the FIA stewards’ office after qualifying for causing big queues at the end of the pitlane as they headed out for their final Q1 runs at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. 

The three-time world champion, who qualified third behind the Ferrari duo, said he was “quite surprised” to have been called before the stewards. 

“Everyone is trying to make a gap,” the Red Bull driver explained. 

“I saw a car passing five cars behind me and then he tried to pass me as well but I’m just trying to make a gap out of the pit lane. 

“That is basically what everyone has been doing so I’m quite surprised. I think everyone then should be called up for impeding, because with these new rule, everyone is driving very slowly in the pit lane. 

“I don’t think I did anything weird or wrong.”

Verstappen argued that the pitlane is the only place drivers can safely create a gap for themselves before joining the circuit now that F1 has imposed a maximum time limit on all laps in qualifying. 

“I think it’s all imperfect at the moment, so we need to come up, probably, with something else,” he added. 

“The thing I don’t understand is that everyone is trying to find a gap in the pit lane, which is the only place where we can do so, so I don’t really understand how we can be impeding someone. 

“I think we have to be a little bit more lenient with that, knowing it’s a safe environment. It’s the only place we can make a gap. We drive out of the box and we don’t know what other people are doing. 

“So you are constantly then trying to judge a gap. You don’t want to start a lap within three or four seconds of someone, because that’s really bad for following, but then if we didn’t have this kind of minimum lap time, maybe you have some impeding into the last sector again. 

“It’s just all quite tough, to find a compromise.”