Verstappen: It's not fair

The incident on lap 44 immediately divided opinions, many siding with Verstappen's version that there was enough room for Bottas as the pair dragged down the main straight into Turn 1 where they tangled, the Mercedes was forced down the escape road, losing several seconds, while the stubborn Red Bull remained in third.

FIA race stewards looked at the incident on the spot and handed Verstappen a five-second penalty. Thus, although the feisty Dutchman crossed the line in third, he was demoted to fifth for his antics.

Clearly, this did not go down well with him in the cockpit and he let everyone know as much when he said over the radio: "For what? Don't worry about it? It's [expletives]. I gave him space. They're doing a great job of killing racing, honestly."

Speaking after the race, Verstappen was still not happy when he told reporters, "We were in a position we didn't expect to be. I think I gave him the car width and he clipped my wheel and he had to go straight. Maybe they accepted the penalty because early on I went a bit wide against Valtteri, but it's not fair."

“I don’t agree with it but maybe they took the penalty because when he first tried to attack me in the beginning of the race, I went a bit wide. Maybe that is why they gave it to me, but even then it is not fair because they gave it straight away."

“It is a shame but looking at the positives, the car was working really well. Yeah, even though the lack of top speed that we have, the car was good on the tyres."

“Of course, I have to push a bit harder under braking and in terms of acceleration to try to keep Valtteri behind so it also takes a bit out of your tyres but it was all under control.”

Later, in his post-race review, Verstappen added, "I think I gave Valtteri enough space on the left so he didn’t need to go off the track. The rule says that as long as you give the other driver a car width space, it should be enough. That’s what I did, but he clipped my wheel at Turn 1 and he had to go straight on.

"The decision is taken and we can’t do anything about it. Of course, after I heard about the penalty I was even more determined to keep my track position. I’ve tried to do the best race I could and I had to fight hard for it as we are so much slower on the straights."