MAD MAX HANDS IT TO LEWIS
Verstappen loses plot after Brit’s win
MAX Verstappen shoved Esteban Ocon in the chest three times in an angry confrontation following yesterday’s Brazilian Grand Prix.
Verstappen was furious after Ocon cost him a fine victory and handed the win to Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen called the Force India driver a ‘f****** idiot’ for crashing into him. He then pushed and shoved Ocon inside the FIA garage, where the drivers were being weighed.
FIA officials stepped in to stop the fracas escalating before the stewards summoned both men to answer for their actions. Verstappen was sentenced to fulfil two days of ‘public service’ for the FIA. The pair were charged with ‘an act prejudicial to the interests of motor sport’.
The Dutchman knocked Ocon off the step as he confronted him — an echo of the sport’s occasionally fiery past, such as Nelson Piquet fighting with Eliseo Salazar in Germany 36 years ago.
The background to yesterday’s fisticuffs was Verstappen and Ocon’s collision on the 44th lap of the 71-lap grand prix at Interlagos, with Ocon needlessly trying to race Verstappen, the leader, at 220mph. Ocon, running 16th, acted imprudently in not respecting the Dutchman’s status in the race.
They came together at the Senna Esses and Verstappen spun off, ceding first place to Hamilton, who went on to win his 10th race of the season. It was a perfect celebration of the fifth world title he won in Mexico a fortnight ago. Verstappen finished second. Over the radio, he called Ocon an idiot in the immediate heat of battle. At the end of the event, his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, known as GP, said: ‘I don’t know what to say.’ To which Verstappen replied: ‘I know what to say. I hope I don’t come across him the paddock.’ The rest of the exchange was broadcast as a long bleep to mask Verstappen’s expletives. But he did see Ocon almost the moment he got out of the car and took the incident up with the 6ft 3in Frenchman, so the shoving started. Verstappen’s team principal Christian Horner backed his man, saying: ‘ He was lucky to get away with just a push.’ Verstappen said: ‘He has the right to unlap himself, but you have to be careful. He has always been an idiot.’ Ocon was unrepentant, saying: ‘Max is a lunatic. I was on new tyres. So I was very, very fast. The team told me to try to unlap myself. There is no rule saying you are not allowed to do that. Clearly I had the pace to do that, so I went round Max, which I did on Fernando Alonso and many other drivers this weekend. With Max it did not work out.
‘That’s one thing. But what is worse is Max’s behaviour afterwards — being violent, pushing me, wanting to punch me.’
As for Verstappen’s race before the collision, he was chasing his second successive victory, having won in Mexico. He carved his way up the field from fifth on the grid. He had a fast Red Bull and put it to good use by going past Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas early on.
After pitting, he came out behind Hamilton but overtook the champion easily enough down the straight for the lead.
Then came the collision with Ocon. Should Verstappen have taken more care? Perhaps, and some might say he got a taste of his own strong medicine.
But he was entitled to greater circumspection from a driver who was so far down the field.
Verstappen was now five seconds down on Hamilton and nursing a bruised car. He still managed to finish ahead of Ferrari’s Raikkonen, who was third.
The stewards looked into the on-track flare-up and gave Ocon a 10-second stop-go penalty.
Ocon, 22, is on Mercedes’ books as part of their young driver programme. A conspiracy theorist might suggest he was helping a fellow Mercedes man, Hamilton, and acted deliberately. I put it down to simple idiocy.
With Hamilton’s championship victory already decided, there was the business of the constructors’ title to wrap up. Mercedes did that with Hamilton’s triumph and Bottas in fifth.
Five times in as many years, Mercedes have handed out bonuses that come with the team title to their Northamptonshirebased team. New kitchens all round at Brackley!
As for Hamilton, it was his 50th win in 99 starts, and he was emotional afterwards, sinking to his knees, letting the joy of his fifth title consume him two weeks after the fact.