Verstappen does not expect a penalty for ‘fair and hard racing’

Max Verstappen insisted yesterday that he did nothing wrong in his duel with Lewis Hamilton at last Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix, saying he would have spun off the track on his “worn tyres” had he turned in any more aggressively.

After deliberating for around four hours last night, FIA stewards are set to rule today on whether to accept Mercedes’ right of review and look again at an incident. As he tried to pass on the outside, the Briton was forced to veer off track to avoid a collision with the Dutchman who went straight on at the corner.

Stewards at the time saw nothing wrong with Verstappen’s driving, but Mercedes want them to consider new onboard footage.

A five-second penalty, which has been meted out for similar offences this season, would drop Verstappen to third at Interlagos, costing him three points in the drivers’ championship. He leads the title race by 14 points with three races remaining.

“I didn’t need to look at the [onboard] footage as I was driving the car,” Verstappen said yesterday when asked for his views on the video that has circulated on social media. “As a driver, we know exactly what we can and can’t do. We were fighting hard and braking late. The tyres were quite worn. If we turn more abruptly to the left we would just spin off.”

Asked how he would feel if he was given a penalty today, Verstappen shrugged: “If, if, if… It’s not the end of the world. But I don’t expect that to happen because I felt it was fair and hard racing.”

Hamilton, for his part, seemed reluctant to comment on an incident he largely dismissed in the immediate aftermath of his win. He did admit, though, that his view had changed.

“In my eyes, I had to keep moving forward. It was also difficult to judge something when you hadn’t seen all the angles,” he said. “Now we’ve relooked at it and I have a different viewpoint. I’m just trying to focus on the fact that we did something quite remarkable at the last race. ”

Verstappen described the souring of relations between Red Bull and Mercedes as “normal when it’s between two teams fighting for the title as opposed to two drivers in the same team”.

“I just have to focus on what’s happening on track,” he added.