Japanese F1 GP: Max Verstappen penalised for 'dangerous parking'

Verstappen left his Toro Rosso stranded on the exit of the hairpin after it suffered a complete electrical failure towards the end of the opening qualifying session at Suzuka.

Explaining their reasoning behind the penalty, a statement from the stewards read: "Car #33 [Verstappen] experienced a sudden power loss at the exit of Turn 11.

"The driver initially moved to the left side of the track towards a safe position and when it was about to stop, moved to the right on to the racing line where it eventually stopped.

"This caused double yellow flags to be shown and endangered oncoming drivers."

Asked how he ended up in such a strange parking position, with his car at a right angle to the track, Verstappen explained: "I was almost on the right side and then I lost all electricity and I was already at quite a low speed.

"I couldn't pull the clutch, and as soon as I was turning right I was just stuck in gear. I wanted to go forward but couldn't pull the clutch.

"I was basically stuck in gear."

After qualifying 15th, Verstappen will provisionally drop to 18th, although he is set to move up a place as Daniil Kvyat will start from the pitlane following his heavy crash at the end of Q3.

The penalty will only serve to add to Verstappen's frustration as the 17-year-old was already annoyed by his car's latest failure.

"So many times in qualifying now I've had a problem," said Verstappen.

"On this occasion I lost all the electricity, so the dashboard stopped and there was no power anymore.

"The team is checking it, Renault doesn't know yet what happened. Obviously I'm not happy about it.

"I feel Q3 would have been possible, for sure."

Verstappen now hopes for another charging performance after coming from a lapped last place to eighth in Singapore a week ago.

"I was one lap down in Singapore, so why can't we do it here?" queried Verstappen.

"I think the car was very good in qualifying. I don't see any reason not to go for it."