Max Verstappen accepts responsibility for his near-miss with George Russell at the 2025 Spanish GP and admits the situation should never have happened after avoiding a serious collision with the Mercedes as his emotions boiled over.
The four-time world champion was confused and agitated when Red Bull pitted him for a set of hard compound tyres during a late safety car, leaving him vulnerable when McLaren’s Oscar Piastri chose to restart the race.
Then after almost losing control of his car out of the final corner, he was passed by Charles Leclerc into Turn 1 before Russell’s Silver Arrows car made an ambitious and late lunge – one that forced the Dutchman to bail out down an escape road.
The 27-year-old ultimately kept track position but was later told to relinquish it to avoid a time penalty, something he chose to do by appearing to slow down into Turn 5 before then diving into the corner aggressively.
That forced the Brit to open his steering and avoid a crash, whilst the defending champion bolted off down the road and only surrendered the place later into the race, collecting a 10-second time penalty and three FIA Super License points for the incident.
Initially refusing to talk about it, Verstappen now seems to accept responsibility for his driving at the 2025 Spanish GP but still insists there were other factors at play that contributed to his loss of emotional control.
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“We had an exciting strategy and good race in Barcelona, till the Safety Car came out,” Verstappen wrote on Instagram. “Our tyre choice to the end and some moves after the safety car restart fuelled my frustration, leading to a move that was not right and shouldn’t have happened.
“I always give everything out there for the team and emotions can run high. You win some together, you lose some together. See you in Montreal.”
Horner says Verstappen apologised to Red Bull for 2025 Spanish GP incident
Several Formula 1 personalities accused Verstappen of a deliberate action with his move, including Russell, the 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg and Sky Sports F1’s Anthony Davidson.
Whilst Verstappen has neither confirmed nor denied what he aimed to do at Turn 5, Red Bull’s Christian Horner has revealed that his driver apologised to the team in the debrief after costing them 14 points with the manoeuvre.
“The safety car came out at the worst possible time for our strategy,” Horner said via Instagram. “We had the choice to stay out on older tyres or take the gamble with a new set of hard tyres.
“Hindsight is always 20/20, but we made the best decision at the time with the information we had. The result that followed was frustrating as it was looking to be an easy podium for Max and good Championship points.
“Max apologised in the debrief for his incident with Russell. The SC also hurt Yuki [Tsunoda’s] race, he would’ve been very close if not in the points otherwise if you look at the trajectory he was on.”
