Max Verstappen apologised to Oscar Piastri following their first lap clash, but feels the stewards are idiots.

In a typically aggressive move in the first corner, the Dutchman locked wheel with the Australian sending both into spins. While the world champion continued having dropped seven positions, Piastri rejoined the race at the back of the field.

To make matters worse, in his efforts to catch up and join the fray, the McLaren driver subsequently ran into the back of Franco Colapinto, incurring front wing damage that necessitated an early pit stop, while also picking up a 10s penalty.

Immediately after the race Verstappen apologised to the Australian but remained resentful at the stewards for his own 10s penalty.

"My launch was good and then I tried to grab the inside and I quickly realized, once I committed to it, that the gap was closing and I wanted to try and get out of it, because I didn't want to naturally, of course, crash with Oscar," explained the Dutchman at race end. "But unfortunately, we still clipped each other.

"I already apologized to Oscar," he continued, "it is not what you want to happen, and especially not with him. He's a great guy but it happened, and it is a bit unfortunate.

"The thing was that, when you're in that position, you're focusing on the car ahead, you commit. When you start first or second, you never really look behind.

"So I went for it, and then I realized, 'shit, he doesn't see me there'. So I was like trying to get out of it, but then we still clipped."

During the race, when notified of the penalty, Verstappen called the stewards "idiots".

"Of course, that is on me," he told reporters at race end, "but I was expecting maybe 20 seconds, 30 seconds, I don't know, stop and go!

"Maybe something to talk about for next time," he laughed. "I don't understand anything anymore, but it's fine, whatever. I'm not going to get angry about stuff like that. It's not worth my time.

"Like I said, the most important thing is that I apologize to Oscar, and that's it."

"He came and apologized straight away," confirmed Piastri." The stewards deemed there was a penalty, so we go again next year.

"It was a tough race from then on," he admitted, "but again, we achieved our main objective today, and that's all that matters.

"It was a pretty miserable race for myself, but of course, the biggest thing today is we clinched the championship."

Check out our Sunday gallery from the Yas Marina here.

LATEST NEWS

more news >

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

Click to go to the main galleries section

READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 12/12/2024 0:34

"@ Schrodinger's cat....Thanks for the response. I too thought that might have been the case but there has been no mention of it in the press...that I have seen. I did find it out of character as Piastri rarely makes mistakes but is obviously not totally immune."

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

2. Posted by Schrodinger's cat, 11/12/2024 17:27

"What happened to that thing about calling all turn 1 incidents, racing incidents?"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

3. Posted by Schrodinger's cat, 11/12/2024 17:23

"@ kenji
I believe Colapinto braked early, catching out Piastri.

I cannot understand why these cars don't have brake lights. Those flashing lights when harvesting, but nothing for braking unusually early and urgently (first corner!). How many race ending rear-enders could have been avoided?"

Rating: Positive (2) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

4. Posted by kenji, 11/12/2024 1:38

"Max's move ruined the race for me as I saw it as an opportunity for Oscar to do well. That was not to be but at least Piastri was able to claw back some places in a determined drive. It was particularly galling to see Verstappen finish in front of Oscar though. That's life in F1 I guess. The only redeeming feature was that Verstappen had the good grace to immediately apologise for his transgression. Well done Max. Would like to know the explanation re Piastri's rear ending of ColaP. Was it a lack of concentration or did he lose downforce on the front wing with a resultant brake fade failure? "

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

5. Posted by Pavlo, 10/12/2024 9:53

"Well, done and dusted. I like the attitude of Max, apologises, joked, moved on.
Yes, according to the rules it’s a penalty. Fairly he got it and served.
The move was not terrible, he saw the gap and went for it, but didn’t manage to get enough in front. Risked, didn’t work, get penalty, had a decent race afterwards.
His comments to the engineer should be just his personal stuff, nothing to discuss here really."

Rating: Positive (3) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

6. Posted by Max Noble, 10/12/2024 6:36

"…damned if you race to soft… damned if you race too hard. The Goldilocks approach to racing is difficult for all who seek to win…

@RP - ah that decision transgression of disaster was Michael Masi not Charlie at the 2021 season finale. Mainly due to Charlie having died in March 2019, making it awkward for him to continue in his role as race director.
"

Rating: Positive (3) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

7. Posted by Spindoctor, 09/12/2024 19:20

"Max reverts to type. Pure aggression is not brilliance, but *controlled* aggression is essential. Maybe one day he'll learn the difference"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

8. Posted by Burton, 09/12/2024 18:11

"@Stitch431 the steward that did Hulkenberg for the pit exit stuff this time, quoting some sacrosanct race director's notes, is the exact same steward that at Monaco '22 threw the race director under the bus to avoid giving a penalty to Max for...pit exit stuff."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

9. Posted by RP, 09/12/2024 16:35

"His first championship was gifted by the race director in a pretty unprecedented move. I suppose the director (Charlie Whiting?) was a genius. It appeared in the various replays that Max did something wrong, an understatement and he apologized to Piastri. If he was so blameless why would he apologize to anyone? Sometimes you can see the stewards are in error looking at the various replays but this wasn't one of them. As I mentioned earlier, Max's driving has changed when he's not driving off into the sunset in a dominant car. Not for the better. "

Rating: Negative (-4) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

10. Posted by West York, 09/12/2024 13:33

"I expected in response to the over the air staement of "Could we ask for 20 seconds? Stupid idiots!" for the stewards to give him another penalty of 20s with an on screen reason of '...at driver's request'."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

11. Posted by Mad Matt, 09/12/2024 13:07

"@Stitch431 I heard on the commentary I was listening to that the drivers had asked for the stewards to be stricter and impose harsher penalties for incidents involving contact.

I don't know if that's try but if so I can understand why there's been a change.... would have been nice to make the decision public though!"

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

12. Posted by Stitch431, 09/12/2024 13:01

"I do think the punishment was justified this time, because Max was just not beside Oscar yet. But 10 seconds was over the top again. What remains ridiculous, however, is the complete arbitrariness of the stewards. Last week in Qatar, Hulkenberg completely messed up in Turn 1, eliminating Ocon and Colapinto. I thought that was a much worse action than Verstappen's and he gets nothing. Hamilton also got nothing when he did a bizarre divebomb in the Miami sprint that eliminated Lando. I just can't reconcile that complete arbitrariness."

Rating: Positive (2) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

13. Posted by Wokingchap, 09/12/2024 11:09

"This was an incident i totally expected from The Bully.
At least he apologised."

Rating: Negative (-2) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

Verstappen rues "unfortunate" Piastri clash

LATEST NEWS

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

POST A COMMENT

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

Share this page