His day, and no doubt his summer holidays, already ruined by a disappointing performance which saw him throw away any chance of victory in the opening few moments of the race, was to get worse.

Following an incident later in the race as he battled with Max Verstappen for third, Nico Rosberg was handed a 5-second time penalty after being deemed as having forced the Red Bull driver off track.

Still smarting as he watched what had been a 43-point lead become a 19-point deficit, Rosberg not only had to endure Verstappen's criticism of the incident but the Dutch youngster's dredging up of the Red Bull Ring clash with teammate Lewis Hamilton.

"He braked really late and at one point I thought he was going to run into me," said Verstappen, "so I opened up and then he didn't turn in, he was just driving straight so I had to go off the track otherwise we would have crashed.

"That's not very handy, Lewis knows,” continued, almost with a wink. "That happened and he got a five second penalty, so for me it was just trying to stay within these five seconds to get him back after the pit stop."

When subsequently told of Rosberg's comments, that he had been on full lock and Verstappen had moved under braking, the teenager smiled and said: "Well I could still see his hands going straight so I don't know if that's full lock.

"He braked really late and as soon as he came next to me he just didn't turn in, a bit like in Austria," he added, further twisting the knife, "so he just forced me to go off the track, when he easily would have made the corner."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Hockenheim, here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by testa rossa, 02/08/2016 15:14

"This kind of trying to push competitors off the track was also the cause of the Barcelona collision"

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2. Posted by Mad Matt, 02/08/2016 10:55

"On the replay I saw it looked like Max suddenly turned in, then stopped which caused Nico to swerve a little which probably made his braking more difficult than usual as he'd have had to hold straight ahead for a brief moment to let the car settle before re-applying thus avoiding a spin.

Perhaps Max turned in at his usual point but to me it looked like an attempt at blocking.

I'm not a Nico fan so I don't care too much but it does seem to be yet another example of penalties being applied more or less at random. "

Verstappen: It was like Austria

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