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Nico Rosberg comments on Max Verstappen’s collision with George Russell and says: “If you wait for your opponent just to bang into him and crash into him, then that’s a black flag”.
On lap 61 of the Spanish Grand Prix, after the race was restarted following a Safety Car period, George Russell attempted to overtake Max Verstappen, but the two drivers made contact.
Verstappen then cut across to the inner escape road and returned to the track ahead of Russell, which led to his engineer telling him to give the position back.
On lap 64, it appeared that Verstappen was letting George through, however as the Briton pulled alongside, Verstappen ran into the side of his car.
Ultimately Verstappen received a post-race ten-second penalty, and got demoted from P5 to P10.
While commenting on the situation, former Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg said he thought George was at fault in the first incident, but in the second Max should have been disqualified from the race.
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“It was George’s fault, as he only complied with two out of the three things that you need to comply with when you overtake, so Max could have stayed in front and didn’t have to give up that place,” the German said.
“So then Red Bull told him to give up the place, that caused his blood to boil over even more.
“And then it looked like a very intentional retaliation, wait for the opponent and go ramming into him just like you felt the other guy rammed into you in Turn 1.
“And that is something that’s extremely unacceptable. And I think the rules then would be black flag, yeah.
“So that’s why I said: ‘Okay, if you wait for your opponent just to bang into him and crash into him, then that’s a black flag,'” Rosberg concluded.
