Max Verstappen is insistent he is the ‘victim’ of the first corner incident at Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman was tight on the inside of the La Source hairpin, trying to repass the two Ferrari’s after falling behind them due to a slow getaway from the line.
However, his positioning and that of Sebastian Vettel on the outside left Kimi Raikkonen as the man the middle with nowhere to go.
As a result, Verstappen lost most of his front wing and the two Ferrari’s also sustained damage dropping all three men down the order.
While most are prepared to see it as a racing incident, contact at La Source on the opening lap is nothing new after all, the Red Bull driver is adamant he did nothing wrong.
“I was a victim in the first corner, you could see clearly I was on the inside, almost 90%,” he told Autosport.
“I didn’t lock a tyre, so it didn’t show I was diving up the inside, I was just trying to make my corner.”
Instead, Verstappen points the finger at Vettel, claiming he didn’t leave enough room.
“First of all, Kimi started to squeeze me but we are not touching each other but then Sebastian decided to turn in on both of us.
“He turned into Kimi and Kimi hit me so from there on, the front wing was destroyed and my floor,” he added.
For his part, the German has admitted he only left room for one car, his teammate, on the inside and described Verstappen’s attempt at a pass as ‘bold’.
That would only be the start of the issues between the teenager and in particular Raikkonen as they were involved in two close-quarter moments later in the race.
First Verstappen blocked an attempted overtake by the Finn by waiting for him to commit to the inside before making his one allowed defensive move, while technically legal, hence why it wasn’t investigated, it could have caused a massive crash akin to Mark Webber at Valencia in 2012.
The second was an aggressive defence of a move around the outside at Les Combes by the Ferrari which Max covered by simply pushing Raikkonen into the run-off area.
The usually calm 2007 world champion, who was also highly critical of Verstappen’s defensive driving when the pair battled in Hungary last month, was furious with the Dutchman describing his actions as ‘f**king ridiculous’ adding post-race that he will ’cause a massive accident’.
Verstappen defended those actions too, however, by saying his level of defence was in response to what had happened at the start.
“They should understand that first of all, they destroyed my race in Turn 1 so why should I say ‘OK here you can go’,” he said.
“Of course, it was quite aggressive, but they destroyed my race so it’s not like I say you can take my position that easy as well.”
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner admitted his young starlet’s driving was ‘on the edge’ but pointed out none of his moves were investigated by the stewards.
He did say, however, that he though Verstappen would ‘take another look’ and ‘learn from it for future races’.
