AllRacing

Yes, Max, it matters

For 60 laps of the Spanish Grand Prix, Max Verstappen had not put a wheel wrong. He had driven excellently, and his Red Bull team had also put itself in position to earn a huge amount of praise after an aggressive, attacking strategy that kept Verstappen in the fight for victory.

He was going to fall short, and he was going to finish third. But then the safety car ruined those hopes as almost the entire field made a late final pit stop, and Red Bull understandably was among them. The fact Verstappen only really had a new set of hard tires available – rather than used softs – was a hugely unfortunate byproduct of the proactive strategy the team had previously committed to.

None of that really matters that much now, because Verstappen overshadowed all of his – and his team’s – good work with one bizarre, scarcely believable, and worrying moment at Turn 5.

When he was asked by Sky Sports after the race if he had driven into George Russell intentionally, he did not reject the notion. He simply replied: “Does it matter?”

When the reporter Rachel Brookes completely fairly replied with: “I think so, to people watching…” Verstappen almost seemed offended to be asked about the incident.

“Yeah? OK, that’s great,” he said. “I prefer to speak about the race than one single moment.”

Sadly, Max, it really does matter. Because for all of your brilliance and ability, it was an extremely costly moment that defines your race result, but also has a massive impact on your reputation and potentially your ability to do your job.

Verstappen now sits just one penalty point away from a race ban, meaning the incident could well cost him not only the nine championship points he lost as a direct consequence of dropping from fifth to 10th courtesy of a 10-second time penalty, but also a further chance to score at all if he does end up missing an event.

A simple “no” would have sufficed. Some form of explanation would have gone a long way. But there wasn’t one forthcoming, because what Verstappen did was inexplicable.

It took all Verstappen’s brilliance for Red Bull to push the McLarens in Spain, but just a moment of apparent petulance to render all that work irrelevant. David Ramos/Getty Images

Of course he was massively frustrated, having driven so brilliantly up to that point in what was ultimately a losing battle, and then see the safety car situation leave him a sitting duck to drivers he had comfortably beaten. And the frustration had only grown from the contact with Charles Leclerc on the pit straight – deemed neither driver’s fault – after his huge moment exiting the final corner, and then Russell’s attempt to pass a few hundred meters later.

Russell was ambitious, and Verstappen was within his rights to remain ahead after being forced wide. The stewards would later confirm as much, but Red Bull was worried about a penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, and advised him to give the place back.

I’m sure Verstappen felt wronged in that moment, and I don’t begrudge him being frustrated at all. His radio messages were totally understandable as he told his team he felt it was not right to move over for Russell.

But move over he appeared to on the exit of Turn 4. Whether he then decided against letting Russell pass, we don’t know, because Verstappen won’t talk about it. But to suddenly accelerate, ignore the apex and head for contact with the Mercedes instead was very much a decision he made.

I say “head for contact” because whether it was his intent to hit Russell or not is not something anyone can truly judge from the outside, however it looks. But this is the best driver on the grid, and I’d argue the best driver in the world right now. The things he can do with a car are amazing, including the jaw-dropping save a few moments before.

That also means there is just no way he was unable to control the car having made the decision to slow down when he did.

“Max is such an amazing driver and so many people look up to him, it’s just a shame things like that continue to occur,” Russell told Sky Sports afterwards. “It’s totally unnecessary and it never seems to benefit himself.

“I’m too close to give my opinion on behalf of the drivers but, you see in Austin last year some of the best moves ever and then you go to Mexico and he lets himself down a bit. You go to Imola, you see one of the best moves you’ll see in a long time and then this happens.”

The only explanation that anyone can make sense of would be that in accelerating again to try and get right onto Russell’s gearbox, or even stay on his inside, he misjudged the scenario from such an unusual speed and braking point, just as the Mercedes was going to hit the brakes. But it seems extremely fanciful, and in Verstappen’s stubbornness to not discuss the incident, he did not offer that reasoning up.

And that’s why the question, and his response, matters. Because right now, to borrow a word used by Toto Wolff, it’s incomprehensible that he would do such a thing deliberately, and so obviously. Yet Verstappen’s lack of an explanation himself only further cements the belief that he had full control of his car but not of his emotions.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner normally backs his driver to a fault, to such an extent that I sometimes criticize his inability to accept when there is no defense. On Sunday night, he didn’t offer one.

The usually very open and talkative Horner was nowhere to be seen after the race, declining to speak to any broadcast media and then stating he had not spoken to Verstappen yet when facing the written press later in the evening.

Pushed on if the “red mist” had got to Verstappen, even Horner could not bring himself to reject the suggestion.

“I think it’s clear that you could hear that he was frustrated,” Horner said. “He didn’t agree, you can hear, with both Charles and George. I haven’t had a chance to speak to him … It’s something that we’ll discuss internally and look at.”

The incident itself was relatively slow speed, and it’s not as if Verstappen drove Russell clean off the track. But what it represents is particularly concerning, because any driver not being able to maintain control of their own frustrations, to the extent that they use their car in that way, could well react similarly when angry again in future.

In some ways, Verstappen got off lightly – Sebastian Vettel got a 10-second stop and go in Baku in 2017 for making contact with Lewis Hamilton behind the safety car – but he’s still not helped himself by refusing to address it.

It’s only his own actions that lead to him facing questions over his intent, and only his own actions that mean they remain unanswered for everyone to make their own minds up.