Kimi Räikkönen believes that Max Verstappen’s blocking maneuvers were questionable and may have been in violation of the regulations regarding illegal blocking. Eventually, the Finn made contact with the Red Bull, but the incident was not penalized by the stewards.
The collision occurred in turn two on lap 57, when Räikkönen attempted to overtake Verstappen. Heading into turn two, Räikkönen began his overtaking move with a fake move to the outside line, before darting back to the inside line. Verstappen moved to block Räikkönen’s original fake and made a minor motion towards the racing line as Räikkönen made his move to the inside line. Räikkönen responded to Verstappen’s move toward the inside and swerved for the outside line. Unfortunately, since the Red Bull had started to brake for the corner, Räikkönen damaged his front wing on the rear of the Red Bull. Verstappen was lucky to avoid a puncture or other damage, but Räikkönen sustained damage to his front wing, including the loss of the left endplate.
Kimi Räikkönen shared his view of his battle and collision with Max Verstappen:
“It’s not for me to decide but I think that his maneuvers are questionable. The first time he started to move on the right and I went left, but he moved back there too, so I had to try and get out of it because I was hitting him hard on the rear and I lost my front wing, which didn’t make it easier to attack again. Then later, every time I managed to make a move and I was committed to somewhere he decided to turn afterwards, and at that point I had nowhere to go. It’s not my job to determine if he was correct or not, but I have seen people being penalized for much less. Today we did our maximum, I’m disappointed because I couldn’t get past Verstappen and go catch the rest.”
Although Verstappen may have made two movements while defending, which is normally not allowed under the regulations, because he was heading into the corner, he was permitted to do so. The regulations state that a defending driver may only make one movement off of the racing line, but then may make a movement back onto the race line before the corner. The only condition is that the defending driver must leave at least a car width of space if the attacking driver has a significant portion of the car alongside the car being overtake. In this situation, the regulations were not violated.
Despite the fact that a similar incident almost occurred only a few laps later, Max Verstappen felt that he did nothing wrong in his battles. “I was simply protecting my position,” he explained. “I drove hard and just made sure I didn’t lock up or make a mistake.”
As a result of the damage to his front wing, Räikkönen was unable to overtake the Red Bull, as a lack of downforce may have hampered his performance. That didn’t stop him from trying and crossing the line just under 0.4 seconds behind Verstappen in fifth position. Although he missed out on a top five finish, Maurizio Arrivabene praised Räikkönen’s performance, saying, “He showed that he fully deserved his contract to be extended into next year.”
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