Montoya Wants 7 Points for Verstappen After F1 Criticism — Racingnews365
Juan Pablo Montoya wants Max Verstappen hit with penalty points on his licence after the Formula 1 driver criticised the sport’s regulations, with the seven-time Grand Prix winner arguing the comments should carry consequences. racingnews365 reports that Montoya drew a line between speaking out and dismissing an F1 car as a Mario Kart machine.
Montoya said Verstappen should be parked if his behaviour keeps crossing that line. “Add seven points to the licence, eight points to the licence, [so] that whatever you do after, you’re going to be parked,” he said, adding, “I guarantee you all the messaging would be different.”
Verstappen and the Miami rules
Verstappen’s complaints came after Formula 1 adjusted its energy-management rules ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, cutting the maximum permitted recharge from 8MJ to 7MJ for qualifying and lowering the boost to 250 kW. The Miami Autodrome is a high-energy circuit, and Verstappen said the change was only a “tickle” before the weekend became a broader complaint about how the cars are being asked to run.
After the grand prix, he said drivers were still being punished by the system. “I mean, you still need to go a bit slower in places to go faster,” he said. “So, yeah, it’s still not how I would like to see it.” He added, “It’s still punishing you,” and, “So that’s not what it should be about.”
Montoya draws the line
Montoya did not argue against criticism itself. “I’m not saying, ‘Don’t say that you don’t like the regulations’, because if you don’t like them, you have the complete right to an opinion,” he said. “It’s okay to be outspoken.” His objection was to the language, and to what he sees as the tone of the debate around Formula 1’s new engine direction.
He said some of the pushback may also be politically driven in favour of teams, which adds another layer to a fight that already includes the sport’s energy-management rules and the way drivers are talking about them. Montoya’s target was not a single comment in isolation; it was the line he believes Verstappen crossed when he called an F1 car a Mario Kart machine.
Licence points and the fallout
Montoya’s call for seven or eight licence points would put the pressure on Verstappen fast. His point was blunt: if a driver keeps talking about the sport in those terms, the punishment should make the next offence costly. That is why he kept returning to the same idea — not silence, but consequences.
For Verstappen, the dispute now sits beyond the Miami weekend. His criticism of the regulations has been public and repeated, and Montoya’s response suggests that some rivals think the conversation has moved from technical complaint to something closer to a discipline issue. The next phase of the fight is not on track; it is in how the sport chooses to respond when a leading driver keeps pushing back on its rules.
