Max Verstappen has claimed he would have been “investigated straight away” by the FIA stewards if he had not lifted for a yellow flag like Lando Norris in the Qatar Grand Prix.

Seven days after wrapping up the F1 2024 World Championship in Las Vegas, Verstappen collected his ninth victory of the season in Qatar on Sunday.

Max Verstappen reacts to Lando Norris Qatar GP penalty

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

The Red Bull driver overcame a rare one-place grid penalty for driving unnecessarily slowly on his outlap in the closing minutes of qualifying, resulting in a near miss with Mercedes driver George Russell, to snatch the lead at the start.

Norris, the McLaren driver, ran second in the first phase of the race but his day was undone after he failed to slow under a yellow flag for debris on the main straight, incurring a 10-second stop-go penalty.

Verstappen was heard drawing attention to Norris’s transgression over team radio, having seen his lead reduced by around half a second through the slow zone.

Norris eventually recovered to 10th, with Verstappen winning comfortably ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Norris’s McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri.

Verstappen’s post-qualifying penalty was the latest piece of action taken against him by the FIA over recent weeks, with the Red Bull man also hit with two 1o-second penalties for separate incidents with Norris in Mexico.

It resulted in the unusual sight of Verstappen sitting stationary in his pit box for 20 seconds before Red Bull’s mechanics were allowed to service his car.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com in the post-race press conference in Qatar, Verstappen claimed the stewards would have acted immediately if he had not slowed for yellow flags.

He said: “I knew that I lifted because I saw the double yellow.

“And I know that, of course, if I wouldn’t have lifted, it would have been investigated straight away.

“So you’re just on it. I asked if he lifted because he had a DRS, I think, from a backmarker at the same time as well.

“And then, of course, when we came out of Turn 1, I saw that he was a lot closer, so I just asked the team to check it.

“It was just a normal question. And I know, of course, with double yellows, they’re quite strict.”

Verstappen’s comments come after he claimed to have “lost all respect” for Russell after the Mercedes driver pleaded for a penalty following their near miss in Q3.

Reflecting on his penalty, which dropped him to second on the grid and promoted Russell to pole position, Verstappen said: “I was quite surprised when sitting there in the stewards room with what was all going on.

“Honestly, very disappointing, because I think we’re all here. We respect each other a lot and of course, I’ve been in that meeting room many times in my life and my career with people that I’ve raced and I’ve never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard.

“That for me, I lost all respect [for Russell].

“Honestly, I couldn’t believe that I got it. But in a way, I was also like: ‘I’m not surprised anymore in the world that I live in.’”

Verstappen went on to suggest it was like “talking to a brick wall” when he was trying to explain his actions to the four-man stewards’ panel of Gary Connelly, Derek Warwick, Mathieu Remmerie and Amro Al Hamad.

He added: “It wasn’t very enjoyable to see that happen because I think that’s the first time that, in the slow lap, someone has been penalised.

“I just tried to be nice, so maybe I shouldn’t be nice.

“But I was being nice, because we are at the end of the season, everything is more or less decided, especially for me. I didn’t want to screw anyone over to prepare their lap.

“And by doing that – being nice, basically – you get a penalty.

“And that’s what I tried to explain as well, but I just felt like I was talking to a brick wall.

“I think I really spoke about valid reasons for what happened and it was clear cut that around me, there were different scenarios going on as well, with people having colder tyres and stuff, so they have to push anyway, and I didn’t want to then cause a scene into the last corner.

“So, very, very surprising.”

Verstappen’s father, the former F1 driver Jos Verstappen, raised concerns in the aftermath of the Mexican Grand Prix that the FIA risks having “the appearance of a conflict of interest” due to their selection of personnel on F1 stewards’ panels.

Dutch publication De Telegraaf claimed that Mr Verstappen’s complaints were believed to be referring to Johnny Herbert, the former Sky F1 television pundit, and Tim Mayer, the son of the late McLaren co-founder Teddy Mayer, who were both on the panel that decided the Red Bull driver’s punishment in Mexico.

Mr Mayer parted company with the FIA last week after a 15-year tenure.

His departure is understood to be totally unrelated to the concerns raised by Mr Verstappen.