Max Verstappen took the opportunity to scold the media over their reaction to Sebastian Vettel’s first-lap crash at the French Grand Prix.
The Dutch driver has come under heavy scrutiny for his own driving on several occasions this season, losing his cool with one journalist in the press conference in Canada.
After Vettel collided with Valtteri Bottas at the first corner on Sunday at Paul Ricard, the Red Bull driver got some payback and hoped the Ferrari driver would be held to the same standard.
“I think next time you see Seb you should ask him to change his style,” Verstappen said at the post-race press conference after finishing second.
“Because honestly, it’s not acceptable, that’s what they said to me at the beginning of the season, so I think they should do the same!
“And then, of course, Seb shouldn’t do anything, and just drive again and learn from this and go on. That’s my advice to everyone in this room.
“Everybody was trying to go, to try and get a position,” he added. “At the end of the day, you know, people can make mistakes. So, yeah, that happened.”
Elaborating further when talking to Sky Sports, the 20-year-old believes the level of scrutiny drivers are under is unfair.
“They shouldn’t do it at all,” Max claimed. “Mistakes happen, and it happens to the best of us, as you can see today. It just makes me angry, because for sure it won’t be as bad on him as it was for me.
“All the time they came to me [saying] that I should change my approach and all these stupid comments but I didn’t change a thing, and now everything is going right.”
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Indeed now Verstappen has scored podiums in three of his past four races and is hopeful to continue that run at Red Bull’s home race this weekend in Austria.
“Red Bull has been on the podium for the last two races out there,” he said. “We are a bit compromised on the straights but somehow it was always not too bad.
“I’m also looking forward to the weekend because I think a lot of Dutch fans are coming out so a lot of orange around, so that’s always good.”