Verstappen: This is not Formula 1 anymore! What did he say about the sports commissioners?

The Saudi Arabia Grand Prix brought more than one heart attack moment. But one stands out among all of them, and that is the incident from the 38th round. Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton collided, but only the Red Bull driver received a penalty. What did he say to the sports commissioners?

The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was indeed a heart attack and an absolutely crazy race.

A lot has happened, but one moment has come to a head. It’s this duel on lap 38 when Hamilton crashed into Verstappen’s Red Bull. However, the Dutch driver received a ten-second penalty and two penalty points for that collision.

Rightly so? We’ll leave that up to you. The fact remains, however, that Hamilton, by and large, had enough room to pass Verstappen on the inside track. The Red Bull driver was instructed by his team before turn 21 to let the seven-time world champion pass.

This was due to a situation from previous laps where Verstappen had taken the lead by going off track, giving him an advantage, and he had to concede his place back to Hamilton during the rest of the Saudi Arabia VC.

So why did what happened happen in the first place? Because neither driver wanted to be in the lead of the race before the detection point. Here again, the reason is simple – thanks to the small gap, the second driver in the order would have had the advantage of DRS and thus overtook the potential race leader.

So after the race, both parties involved in the accident appeared on the carpet before the sports commissioner. Verstappen argued that he had been ordered to let Hamilton back in front of him, whereupon the British driver replied that he had not been given this information and had no idea why his rival was then pushing so hard on the brakes.

It should be noted, Hamilton had more than enough room on the track. Moreover, there was no sign of a virtual safety car, nor were there any yellow flags displayed. Better put, Hamilton had no reason to be following the Dutch driver at that point.

In any case, the sports commissioners agreed that Verstappen was to blame for the collision. According to them, his braking was faulty (Verstappen braked at 69 bar, resulting in a deceleration with an overload of 2.4 G).

“For me this is not Formula 1, but at least the fans are enjoying it. I gave it everything today, but I wasn’t fast enough. I’m still happy with second place,” Verstappen said in a post-race interview.

“Fortunately the fans are clear about racing because what happened today is unbelievable. I’m just trying to race and this sport is more about penalties than racing these days. There have been a lot of things that I don’t completely agree with, but it is what it is,” he explains.

“I slowed down. I wanted to let him go, I was on the right side, but he didn’t want to pass me and then we collided. I don’t understand what happened there,” Verstappen responded to the collision.

In conclusion, it can be objectively admitted that the decision of the commissioners is somewhat bizarre. And how do you see it?

F1, Motorsport, F1 Sport