OCON ‘WHOLLY UNACCEPTABLE’ IN BRAZIL CLASH
Verstappen furious after costly collision
FIA race director Charlie Whiting says Esteban Ocon was not wrong to try to unlap himself in the Brazilian Grand Prix but fighting Max Verstappen was “wholly unacceptable”.
Verstappen was taken out of the lead of the race after Ocon, recently out of the pits on fresh supersoft tyres, attacked him around the outside into Turn 1 and then tried to pass him on the inside of Turn 2.
Ocon was handed a 10-second stop-go penalty for causing a collision, but was backed after the race by his team, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton, who inherited the win as Verstappen dropped to second.
Whiting said Ocon was “absolutely allowed to unlap himself” but explained that it was the manner in which he attempted to pass Verstappen – who would have been vulnerable to DRS into Turn 4 had Ocon waited a little longer – that was the problem.
“It’s happened many times in the past,” said Whiting of whether lapped drivers can pass frontrunners. “But of course you expect it to be done safely.
“More to the point, it should be done cleanly and absolutely without fighting. You shouldn’t be fighting to get past.
“If he’s got the pace then normally one would expect Red Bull to say ‘Ocon has got the pace, let him through’ or that sort of thing.
“But it seemed he just went for it. It was just a bit unfortunate that he decided to fight for it, which was wholly unacceptable.”
It was the first major incident between a backmarker and the race leader since the 2001 Brazilian GP, which involved Verstappen’s father Jos wiping out race leader Juan Pablo Montoya.
However, Whiting stressed: “I don’t think it makes any difference it was the leader.”
Verstappen’s role in the clash was criticised as some believe he should not have turned in to the apex of Turn 2 when he had gone side-byside with Ocon into Turn 1.
Hamilton said immediately post-race he would have handled it differently to Verstappen and reiterated later that the Red Bull driver should have left more space given Ocon had “nothing to lose”.
“I thought that it was fair game for him to try to unlap himself,” said Hamilton. “Of course you don’t want to cause an incident, but in those scenarios it’s so simple to give each other space.
“You can never assume that the person’s not up your inside, because he’s a backmarker and he’s going to back off.”
Verstappen has been ordered to complete two days of “public service at the discretion of the FIA” as punishment for his post-race altercation with Ocon.
The Red Bull driver confronted Ocon while the drivers were being weighed after the race, shoving the Frenchman in reaction to their collision.
Immediately after the race, Verstappen described Ocon as “such an idiot” before later adding: “I think a penalty says enough. You can easily say afterwards that I have much more to lose than him but I’m just trying to do my race.
“Suddenly a backmarker is trying to race you and taking a stupid risk to dive inside. What can I do about it?
“The penalty for me is that I lost the victory but hopefully in 15 years’ time we can laugh about it.” Ocon added: “What I am really surprised about is the behaviour of Max coming into the scales.
“The FIA having to stop him from being violent, pushing me – and that is not professional.
“I had fresh tyres basically and the rules say you are allowed to unlap yourself if you are faster, and that is what I did on the second lap because I had massive pace.
“I went around the outside of him, the same move I did on Fernando [Alonso], the same move I did on many other drivers, coming from last on the first lap.
“But it didn’t happen the same way in the corner after that.”
But 1997 champion Jacques Villeneuve was in support of Verstappen, describing Ocon as “an embarrassment”. Additional reporting by stuart codling