Verstappen apologised to Piastri but critical of the FIA's penalty
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- Nicole Mulder
Max Verstappen has reached out after the incident with Oscar Piastri at the start of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The Dutchman immediately apologised to the McLaren driver, but questioned the punishment the FIA stewards gave him for the incident.
Verstappen immediately apologised to Piastri
"The launch was good, and then I tried to go up the inside and I quickly realized, once I committed to it, that the gap was closing," Verstappen told media present in Abu Dhabi after the race, including GPblog. "I wanted to try and get out of it because I didn't want to naturally, of course, crash with Oscar, but unfortunately, we still clipped each other."
Verstappen takes full responsibility for the incident: "But I already apologized to Oscar, it's not what you want to happen, and especially not with him, he's a great guy. It happened, it's just a bit unfortunate," the four-time world champion added.
The Red Bull Racing driver expressed his displeasure with the penalty on the radio when he had to stand still in the pits for ten seconds. Afterwards, however, he would not say anything more about it. "Honestly, I don't want to talk about it. I'm just happy that the season is over. For me, the most important thing that I had to do is just apologise to Oscar. Because I had nothing to gain, nothing to lose. I went for it. It didn't work out. And especially also for him, that we both spun. It's not nice. He's a friend of mine, so I don't want to have any weird feelings or whatever going into the break."
Verstappen doesn't understand anything about FIA penalties
Verstappen may take responsibility for the incident, but he doesn't understand anything at all about the FIA's penalties. "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. And, yeah, just have a break. Like I said, the most important thing for me is that I apologise to Oscar. And that's it," he said.
In addition to a 10-second time penalty, the Dutchman had two penalty points added to his licence, bringing his total number of penalty points to eight. With that, the four-time world champion hooks up sharply: "Yeah, maybe I go to 12 when the baby is born, so it's paternity leave," laughs Verstappen.
This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy
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