Nico Rosberg has stood by his claim that Max Verstappen should have been black flagged for intentionally hitting George Russell during the F1 Spanish GP. The Dutch driver had been putting together a strong race in general, where he had the McLaren duo within reach until the last stops.
The driver seemed destined to finish P3 in the race, but it was all turned on its head when Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli ended up suffering a DNF. The stoppage brought in a safety car, and that meant every driver was pitting for a new set of tires. While everybody else pitted for a set of soft tires, Max Verstappen was forced to put fresh hard tires on his Red Bull because he had no other tires left.
During the restart, Max Verstappen was entangled with both Charles Leclerc and George Russell, where the Ferrari would move ahead comfortably. The Mercedes driver and the Red Bull driver had slight contact at the braking point, which meant Verstappen had to go off-track and take evasive action.
When Max Verstappen was told to give the position back to George Russell, the driver was noticeably angry. In what appeared to be a swift change of mind, the Dutch driver first left space for the Brit to pass him just after the first sector, but as soon as the Mercedes came alongside, he would close the gap and make contact with the driver.
For the incident, the driver was given a 10-second penalty, but former F1 champion Nico Rosberg feels that Max Verstappen should have been black-flagged from the race. Talking to Sky Sports after the chequered flag fell, the German said,
“It looked like a very intentional retaliation. Wait for the opponent, go ramming into him, just like you felt the other guy rammed into you at Turn 1. That’s something which is extremely unacceptable and I think the rules would be a black flag yes. If you wait for your opponent to bang into him, that’s a black flag.”
Max Verstappen would ultimately be classified in P10 at the end of the race.
Davidson backs Rosberg and calls Max Verstappen’s move intentional
Sky Sports pundit and former F1 racer Anthony Davidson backed Nico Rosberg’s assertion, as the Brit also felt that Max Verstappen’s move on George Russell was intentional. Talking about the incident, the former Honda and currently a Mercedes simulator driver said,
“I don’t understand why Max slows down after Turn 4. Then, suddenly decides ‘no I’m not going to let him through’. It’s almost he decides ‘no, I’m not going to let him by at all’ carries such excessive speed into the corner and he’s not out of control when doing this and divebombs into the corner, hits the Mercedes hard.”
He added,
“George is immediately on the radio to say ‘what on earth was that?’ I think it’s intentional. And I don’t like to see that. Everything up until that point, I can’t blame Max for.”
Verstappen, in effect, ended what has been a disastrous weekend for him by finishing in P10 and is now a whopping 51 points behind Oscar Piastri in the championship standings.
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Edited by Charanjot Singh Kohli
