F1 champion calls for Max Verstappen disqualification at Spanish Grand Prix

Spanish Grand Prix

F1 champion calls for Max Verstappen disqualification at Spanish Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg believes Verstappen should have been disqualified

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Sunday 1 June 2025 19:27 Updated: 21:40

2016 F1 world champion Nico Rosberg called for Max Verstappen to be given a black flag during the Spanish Grand Prix, which would mean disqualification for the Red Bull star.

Verstappen was slapped with a 10-second time penalty in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish GP, after appearing to purposely crash into Mercedes star George Russell after a safety car restart.

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The pair actually collided twice in just a few laps, with contact into turn one immediately after the restart causing Red Bull to tell their star driver to give a position back to Russell in order to avoid a penalty.

However, this angered Verstappen and, when looking like he was going to let Russell through, the Dutchman veered into Russell before speeding up and staying ahead, much to Russell's dismay.

Verstappen did eventually then let the Mercedes star through, and finished the race up in fifth, before the penalty came and Verstappen was demoted down to 10th.

Rosberg's immediate reaction was that Verstappen should have been disqualified for appearing to intentionally crash into an opponent: "Wow, that's bad, bad, bad," the German said during the live broadcast on Sky Sports F1. "He just rammed him full on. You need to black flag him.

"Max was right in the first instance and then the team went against Max and caused him to boil over."

Once Verstappen was given the 10-second time penalty by race stewards, Rosberg then went on to say that it was 'lenient'.

"That's a very lenient one from my point of view," he said. "Remember Sebastian Vettel against Lewis Hamilton in Baku 2017."

Verstappen's move costly

Verstappen has lost out massively in his drivers' championship battle due to the incident, with Oscar Piastri winning the race and the other championship protagonist Lando Norris coming home in second while the Dutchman finished 10th.

Verstappen is now 49 points behind Piastri in the drivers' championship, as hopes of a fifth consecutive title begin to fade.

That could have been worse, however, had Verstappen been disqualified altogether, and the Dutchman has also put himself one step closer to a one-race ban, due to the number of penalty points he has picked up in the last 12 months.

"It looked like a very intentional retaliation," Rosberg said on Sky Sports F1 after the race. "Wait for the opponent, go ramming into him, just like you felt the other guy rammed into you at turn one.

"That's something which is extremely unacceptable and I think the rules would be a black flag yes. If you wait for your opponent to bang into him, that's a black flag."

Red Bull Max Verstappen Mercedes George Russell Spanish Grand Prix Nico Rosberg