Red Bull‘s Max Verstappen has continued to play down the incident involving himself and Mercedes driver George Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix, whilst also reflecting on a potential race ban coming his way.
The current world champion shocked fans at the Circuit de Catalunya when he appeared to purposely drive into Russell’s car when letting the British driver through, and he was handed a 10-second penalty by the stewards which cost him points in the championship battle with the two McLaren drivers.
Verstappen had overtaken Russell off-track at the start of the lap and was told by his race engineer to let the Mercedes back through. Having slowed down on the inside of the bend, he suddenly accelerated as Russell was at the apex and made heavy contact. It is not the first incident between the two drivers, both on and off of the track.
Verstappen’s frustrations boil over
Speaking to the press of the Canadian Grand Prix, Verstappen was asked plenty of questions regarding the incident with Russell in Barcelona and he initially seemed very unwilling to unpack it, saying: “I just didn’t really say much after the race. I think it was quite clear I got penalised for it, so I think that speaks for itself.”
When pressed on how hard it was to publicly admit to making a mistake, Verstappen explained that it isn’t difficult for him to reflect on each race but he did provide some context for his frustrations.
“It’s not hard. I always reflect after every race, even the good ones. It isn’t hard at all. It’s difficult to say why or how exactly. I think it was also communication with letting the car by, which I found was not correct from my side,” Verstappen said of the incident with Russell.
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“If you look at the onboard footage, I think at the time we should have just continued, but I got that call, of course. Then the whole end of the race was frustrating because, up until that point, we had a good race. We did the right strategy for our car and put a bit of pressure on McLaren, who were very fast compared to everyone else, but yeah, frustrating end.”
Talking more specifically about what led to the impact with Russell, the Dutchman said: “It was just very frustrating — a few laps in a row. I got driven into the street after I was already struggling with hard tyres.
“Then I got driven into turn one. Then they told me I had to give the place back. I was like, that makes no sense. So a lot of things just came together. There was a misjudgment in the corner, but everyone makes mistakes in life. Everyone learns from them and moves on.”
Will Verstappen miss a race?
The major knock-on effect from Verstappen’s penalty in Barcelona is that he now has to walk on eggshells if he is to avoid a race ban later in the season. He was handed three penalty points on his super license which put him on 11 points for the last year. If a driver gets to 12 points in a 12-month period, they have to miss a race.
He will have two points knocked off that total of 11 after the Austrian Grand Prix, but he cannot receive another penalty point in either Canada or Austria if he wants to avoid a ban.
When asked by the press if he would be deserving of a ban, Verstappen said: “I don’t need to go into that, to be honest. What is fair? Is it fair that I’m on 11 points? I don’t know. But at the same time, life is not fair. So if you look at it like that, I don’t worry about it. I just come here to race and I will always race hard, race how I think I should race. And then we go on to the next race.”
