Verstappen without petrol in Singapore. Also suspicious about the mistake of Red Bull- Corriere.it

Between the own goal that prevented Verstappen from taking pole and the accusation of having exceeded the limit of the budget that hangs over Red Bull’s destiny, there are no relationships. Officially. Yet, in the Singapore paddock as on the sofas of half the world, the suspicion hovers that the stop ordered to Max at the end of qualifying, more than the lack of petrol was due to the desire to fly low, to avoid the window when the Fia decides if and how to punish Red Bull.

This clue is enough to give a measure of the discomfort that has already affected F1, even in the absence of certainties on the extent of the infringement, however, taken for granted by every team principal. The dominant idea is that in these hours mediation is desperately sought, with the aim of minimizing the terms of the mess, given that we are talking about the team that gave Verstappen the 2021 title, which is leading Verstappen to an encore in 2022.

The fact is that Red Bull’s opponents are forming a united front to ensure that a very harsh sentence is reached. No team, better to clarify, has a clear conscience. For this reason, when a stain appears, a formidable anger is unleashed. At stake is, in addition to rankings and money, the ability to fight by touching the shadows, arguing over a thousand mischievous interpretations, stuff that is part of a usual party game, functional to the tension. Nothing comparable to stumbling upon the runner so awkward. Definitely too much for refined champions of technical balancing.

The hypothesis that one or more World Cups can reward a team that has cheated, would make the theater collapse. And now those who run, in defense not only of a competitive interest, demand maximum rigor. The absence of which would destroy the game, relegating all the protagonists to a gray area as large as the entire circus. Turning every little diatribe into a certain cheat. The allegations about the stop given to Verstappen yesterday only signal a first, very acute alarm.