Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Force India’s Esteban Ocon were summoned to Brazilian Grand Prix stewards on Sunday after they collided on track and then almost came to blows in an angry confrontation off it.
Verstappen was leading at Interlagos when he tried to pass backmarker Ocon, who tried to retake the position with terrible consequences.
The two cars banged together, the impact sending the Dutchman into a spin that cost him a second successive victory and allowed five-times world champion Lewis Hamilton to win for Mercedes. The Red Bull driver, who had called the Frenchman an idiot over the radio among other more colourful language, was then seen on television angrily confronting Ocon and giving him a shove.
The 21-year-old was unrepentant when asked about the shoving.
“We are passionate about the sport, right?,” he said. “It would be odd if I would shake his hand.”
Verstappen dismissed those who said he had taken things too far, adding: “I don’t care what those people say.
“I am a winner. To get taken out like that and then to get a stupid response from his side as well, I was unhappy about that,” he added.
To add spice to the argument, Ocon has a long-term Mercedes contract.
The stewards issued a statement summoning both drivers for an alleged breach of the FIA International Sporting Code by acting in a manner “prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally”.
The statement referred specifically to “physical contact with another competitor in FIA garage” after the race.
The stewards had already handed Ocon a 10 second stop/go penalty for causing the collision — a sanction that Force India team boss Otmar Szafnauer was predictably unhappy about.
“I don’t think Max left him any room,” he told Sky Sports television, “You’re allowed to unlap yourself,” he added, dismissing as ‘conspiracy theory’ any suggestion that Ocon’s relationship with Mercedes played any part in his actions.
“He asked us ‘can I unlap myself?’ He was unsure. And we said ‘yeah, go ahead.”
Ocon also pitched in, saying he had been on fresher tyres and was lapping faster and that Verstappen’s post-race behaviour was out of order.
“What I am really surprised about is the behaviour of Max coming into the scales.
The FIA having to stop him from being violent, pushing me and wanting to punch me and that is not professional,” said the 22-year-old.
“I am used to the fights with Max, he has always been the same.
It goes back a few years,” he added.
Hamilton suggested Verstappen could have exercised more caution on track, telling the Dutchman as much before the podium celebrations.”You had more to lose than he did.
He had nothing to lose,” he said.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said Ocon’s actions ‘beggared belief’ and he was “lucky to get away with a push”.
“Emotions are running high.
I told him (Verstappen) ‘just get yourself under control on the cool-down lap’ because he’s lost a victory through no fault of his own today,” he added.
“It’s hugely frustrating for him and the team.”
Red Bull’s Dutch driver Max Verstappen.
