Max Verstappen has sided with Sebastian Vettel over his controversial penalty at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Ferrari will get their ‘right to review’ hearing on Friday at Paul Ricard in front of the FIA stewards from Montreal, putting forward their evidence for the race-deciding five-second penalty to be overturned.
And adding his view to the many on the incident between Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, Verstappen does think the penalty decision was reached too quickly.
“In general if you’re going to award a penalty maybe don’t do it in the race,” the Red Bull driver told media in France on Thursday.
“It ruins the whole excitement of Lewis catching Seb and fighting for the win.”
Also Read:
- Vettel penalty the result of F1 ‘striving for perfection’, says Wurz
- Mercedes warn Ferrari as Canada controversy rumbles on
Max then explained why he feels Vettel was wrongly denied his first victory of the season.
“When you look back at it, the first mistake that happened was Seb went off the track but then he rejoined, he didn’t do anything,” he said.
“He was not blocking Lewis on purpose. Why they gave him the penalty was wrong.
“He [Vettel] did everything he could to do it in a safe way. You go off in the lead, you know Lewis is behind by only a second and a half, so you stay on throttle and you’re managing [the car].
“Lewis saw him go off. When he goes through the left he knows Seb is going to come back on and of course he’s going to drift wide, and he had to back off.”
Despite that, the 21-year-old would concede: “If I had been Lewis I would have been on the radio as well saying he blocked me. You know it’s in the rules and there’s a possible penalty.”
