Max Verstappen: Sebastian Vettel Canada penalty for blocking Lewis Hamilton was wrong

Max Verstappen

Verstappen: Vettel Canada penalty was wrong

Max sides with Seb and the Scuderia.

Matthew Scott

Thursday 20 June 2019 15:13

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Max Verstappen weighed in on the debate surrounding Sebastian Vettel's penalty during the Canadian Grand Prix, siding with Ferrari and the German by claiming the stewards made the wrong call in Montreal. Vettel crossed the line first, but Lewis Hamilton was given the victory.

Vettel had five seconds added to his race time for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner ahead of Hamilton as they battled for the lead of the race.

Ferrari will face the FIA on Friday as they look to have the incident reviewed and Verstappen says they may have a good point to make, as well as criticising the decision to reveal the penalty as Vettel and Hamilton were still battling.

"In general if you're going to award a penalty maybe don't do it in the race," said Verstappen.

"It ruins the whole excitement of Lewis catching Seb and fighting for the win.

"When you look back at it, the first mistake that happened was Seb went off the track but then he rejoined, he didn't do anything.

"He was not blocking Lewis on purpose. Why they gave him the penalty was wrong."

Verstappen added: "He [Vettel] did everything he could to do it in a safe way.

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"You go off in the lead, you know Lewis is behind by only a second and a half, so you stay on throttle and you're managing [the car].

"Lewis saw him go off. When he goes through the left he knows Seb is going to come back on and of course he's going to drift wide, and he had to back off.

"If I had been Lewis I would have been on the radio as well saying he blocked me. You know it's in the rules and there's a possible penalty."