After setting the fastest time early in practice, things went very wrong for Denny Hamlin. The car fired off into Turn 3 as a high rate of speed, spinning sideways and backing into the outside wall.

“Stuck throttle! F****** stuck throttle!” exclaimed Hamlin the radio. There was significant damage to the rear clip of the car. Hamlin drove the wounded No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota back to the garage. As he climbed from the car, he slammed his helmet down on the roof in frustration.

Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota Camry

Photo by: Bozi Tatarevic

After narrowly missing out on the win at Homestead, Hamlin enters Martinsville 18 points below the cut-line. It would have been difficult, but he could have pointed his way in with the benefit of stages, but that path is likely gone now. Unless something surprising happens to the Hendrick Motorsports drivers in front of him, a win may be necessary on Sunday.

He will not take part in qualifying and will start from the rear of the field. And Martinsville is a track where passing is difficult and those in the back are lapped rather quickly, so this really puts him behind for Sunday. The team has the choice to either make repairs to the primary or go to a backup for the race. At the moment, they are trying to fix the primary and will run it through inspection to check the measurements.

Hamlin was the first driver to miss out on the final four in both 2022 and 2023. He is the winningest driver in NASCAR Cup Series history without a championship as well. It’s a glass ceiling he simply cannot seem to brea and a myriad of issues have plagued him throughout the playoffs this year.

Joey Logano  and Tyler Reddick are the two drivers locked into the title-decider at Phoenix with Christopher Bell +29 points and William Byron +7 points on the cut-line.

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Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has been demoted to fourth in Formula 1’s Brazilian sprint race due to a five-second penalty for a virtual safety car infringement.

Verstappen climbed from fourth to third in the 24-lap sprint on Saturday after passing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, whom the Dutchman had been stuck behind for the majority of the sprint race.

But immediately afterwards Verstappen was flagged by race control to the stewards for a potential infringement under the late virtual safety car, which was called for Nico Hulkenberg’s stricken Haas.

Verstappen was deemed to have been below the mandated delta time having drawn alongside the second-placed McLaren of Oscar Piastri on the entry into Turn 4.

A hearing between Red Bull and the FIA stewards confirmed that, and Verstappen was handed a five-second penalty which drops him back to fourth, behind Leclerc, in the updated classification.

Verstappen has also received a penalty point on his licence, bringing him up to seven points over a 12-month period, with 12 points leading to a race ban.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

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“The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 1 (Max Verstappen), team representative and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, timing, telemetry evidence,” the FIA verdict read.

“Article 56.5 states in part ‘All cars must also be above this minimum time when the FIA light panels change to green.’

“The driver was 0.63 seconds below the minimum time at VSC end when the FIA light panels changed to green. This indicates a sporting advantage gained under VSC.”

Verstappen, who was joined by Red Bull sporting director Jonathan Wheatley in the hearing, reportedly explained that he was aware he was under the delta time, but was too late to correct it by the time the track went green again.

“The driver explained that as he was awaiting VSC to end and he got the notification that he was below the minimum time, he attempted to correct the error but failed to do so by the point that the panels turned green,” the statement continued.

“This is a breach and the standard penalty is applied for the advantage gained at that time. The net effect of this put the driver ahead of where he was at the start of the VSC and not as a result of the car in front falling back.”

McLaren took a one-two win in the race, with polesitter Piastri giving way to team-mate Lando Norris late on as the latter fights Verstappen for the drivers’ championship.

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McLaren has admitted its approach to team orders is making life difficult for itself, but says there is no “easy solution” that does not risk upsetting one of its drivers.

The Woking-based squad successfully came through the Brazil sprint race with a 1-2 finish, having swapped it cars around to help Lando Norris’s quest to win the world championship.

But the situation was far from straightforward as, with Norris stacked up behind Oscar Piastri earlier in the race, the team risked the Briton being exposed to attack from Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen right behind him.

While the occasional window appeared to open up in the early stages of the 24-lap sprint to get Piastri to let Norris through, the team kept them racing until two laps from home – when the risk of a Virtual Safety Car for Nico Hulkenberg’s stranded Haas forced its hand in getting the swap done.

McLaren was fortunate that neither Leclerc nor Verstappen were able to stay right with Norris though, because having not switched its cars earlier there was a danger of it never having an opportunity to do so before the chequered flag.

Team principal Andrea Stella has admitted that the team orders situation is a difficult one to manage – but points out that there is no solution that will keep the team and both drivers perfectly happy.

“Making life difficult for ourselves is natural, because when you have two drivers that can win races and a car that can win races, this first thing you have to accept is there’s not an easy solution,” he told Motorsport.com.

“That already sets you in a good mindset to deal with the potential difficulties.

“But, like I have said already in the past, we have worked very hard to put ourselves in this difficult situation – and we are all on the same page: team and drivers.

“I always discuss with the drivers, and say that this is the most difficult thing we are going to face in our career, because this is the only thing that we cannot face by having our interests exactly matching.”

Oscar Piastri, McLaren F1 Team, 2nd position, Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team, 1st position, congratulate each other

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Why McLaren delayed the switch

McLaren went into the Brazil sprint crystal clear that the ultimate intention was to have Norris finish ahead of Piastri.

However, what was not settled was how that would be executed in the race, especially because the team could not be certain about how its rivals would get involved.

Explaining how its calls played out, Stella said that the team had agreed with both drivers that they race away as normal – with the priority being that they do not allow any other cars to get between them.

The idea then was to swap the cars once the pair had got to the point where there was a big enough gap behind Norris, so that race-leader Piastri would not be at risk of being overtaken by anyone else.

Stella added: “We knew that we wanted to swap. But we were waiting for the right gap behind Lando, because if you swap and the other car gets in the DRS, we may compromise one of the principles, which is maximum result for the team.

“So, we were observing, and we were ideally waiting for a couple of seconds [gap], but repeated for a couple of laps.”

Stella said that without the gap behind Norris staying large enough for several laps, it felt the risk was too much to force a change too soon.

“The gaps in the sectors were moving around a bit, and I wasn’t completely comfortable to expose Oscar to Leclerc, because, at some stage, Leclerc didn’t seem slow at all at the start of the race.

“Even the time the two seconds appeared, the next lap, it was 1.2 seconds. We were waiting for the right opportunity.

“We didn’t want to get excited and then create a situation that doesn’t maximise the result for the team. We knew that we had time to do that, unless there was a risk of a safety car.

“And as soon as we saw the risk of a safety car towards the end of the race, then we needed to accelerate the process.”

Max Verstappen is under investigation for a potential virtual safety car infringement during the Formula 1 sprint race at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

The championship leader had seemingly minimised the damage to nearest challenger Lando Norris, who was waved past by McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri to take the win.

However, with Verstappen coming home third, the Red Bull driver had only dropped two points to Norris.

But he now faces scrutiny after the end of the 24-lap sprint race saw a virtual safety car deployed as the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg stopped at the side of the track.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said to Sky Sports F1 afterwards that he “didn’t see anything wrong” with Verstappen’s driving.

The Dutchman already has a five-place grid penalty for Sunday’s Brazilian GP after changing his engine outside of his allocation ahead of the weekend.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Verstappen leads the title fight by 45 points as he looks to defend his championship title despite Red Bull currently being out-performed by both McLaren and Ferrari.

Having qualified fourth for the sprint, Verstappen passed Charles Leclerc to finish behind the two McLarens, who switched places to aid Norris’ title ambitions.

It is unclear at present which regulation Verstappen may have fallen foul of but the rules regarding virtual safety cars stipulate:

“56.3 – No car may be driven unnecessarily slowly, erratically or in a manner which could be deemed potentially dangerous to other drivers or any other person at any time whilst the VSC procedure is in use. This will apply whether any such car is being driven on the track, the pit entry road, or the pitlane.

“56.5 – All competing cars must reduce speed and stay above the minimum time set by the FIA ECU at least once in each marshalling sector and at both the first and second safety car lines (a marshalling sector is defined as the section of track between each of the FIA light panels).”