13/09/2018
NEWS STORY
It was shades of Lewis Hamilton today in Singapore, as Max Verstappen, when asked about the time penalty handed to him at Monza following his clash with Valtteri Bottas, suggested that in the case of the stewards it was seemingly a question of 'is it because I is Max?'
Mounting a typically robust defence, the Dutch driver collided with Bottas at the first chicane as they battled for third, the subsequent time penalty dropping him to fifth, behind Sebastian Vettel who had spun on the first lap.
While some spent the break post-Monza launching their fashion lines, playing with their dogs or studying the situations vacant columns, Verstappen was watching re-runs of previous races at Monza.
"I was analysing other videos from the year before, because when you go back 10 - 15 years it is a bit irrelevant with rules and stuff, and the same happened exactly between Stroll and Massa," the youngster told reporters.
"Massa was very clever and didn't clip his wheel," he continued, "but stayed on the white line and took a little bit of the green run-off, but his tyre was still on the white line.
"Of course I always try to make it as difficult as possible for them to get by," he admitted. "And I will fight for every millimetre on track, which I did, so at the end I think it is very harsh.
"Also, looking back at what happened in Monza, other drivers just pushing each other off the track, damaging each other's cars, running into each other, and we didn't have any damage. He clipped my wheel and had to go wide. There was no damage and I think that is why it was very hard. You cannot change the decision, but I still think it was harsh.
"Of course I was going to the left but as long as you give him a car width space then it is fine," he insisted. "I think I gave him that. Of course it is on the millimetres, and if you go there, maybe it is a one millimetre that is enough or not enough, but that is how I race. On the millimetres... not metres.
"Of course I have to defend this hard because I am always down on power on the straight," he added. "If we have the top speed you will never be in this position. With the clipping we have, it is more than the others, so they suddenly arrive very quick and you have to be very aggressive in your defending.
"I could easily just say, let him go by and still have a great race and everybody says Max had an amazing race. But I am not there to finish fourth."