Last Sunday at Montmelo Max Verstappen was back to his old self, the driver who is often responsible for borderline maneuvers for which he has been accused of being unfair and unsporting and sometimes punished in an exemplary manner.
It all came to a head in the final stages of the GP, when at the restart after the brief period under Safety Car due to a breakdown on Andrea Antonelli's Mercedes, a scrap broke out between him and Russell. A back-and-forth that reached its climax when George ended up slightly off the track. At that point, from the Red Bull wall came the invitation to the Dutchman to let his opponent pass so as to avoid penalties, but he, in response, contrite, instead of obeying, let himself be flanked by the Stuttgart manufacturer's driver and rammed him.
Such behavior did not go unnoticed with the officials, so much so that he picked up a 10-second penalty and was relegated to 10th place. Asked by Sky Sports UK to comment on the incident, Nico Rosberg, 2016 world champion and now a commentator for the pay-TV broadcaster, made a curious comparison with motorcycles. "When I saw the contact , I immediately thought of Valentino Rossi's move against Marc Marquez in Malaysia in 2015," the German said, recalling when the Doctor took revenge on the track for the Catalan allegedly favouring Jorge Lorenzo in the title fight.
"It was a really bad move because he hit him on purpose. In my opinion he deserved the black flag," he then sentenced.