F1 champion issues Max Verstappen black flag verdict at Spanish Grand Prix

Former Formula 1 world champion Nico Rosberg has claimed that Max Verstappen should have been shown the black flag and disqualified from Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix.

Towards the end of the race, a late safety car scuppered Verstappen's three-stop strategy in Spain, with the reigning world champion switching to hard tyres after a late stop, whilst his rivals went for soft rubber.

On the restart, Verstappen was helpless, quickly losing out to Charles Leclerc behind and also under further pressure from George Russell. Verstappen and Russell went on to collide twice in just a few laps, with contact in 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 his Mercedes rival before speeding up and staying ahead, much to Russell's dismay.

Verstappen did eventually let the Mercedes star through and finished the race up in fifth, before the race stewards hit him with a 10-second time penalty, demoting him down to 10th overall.

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."

READ MORE: F1 Results Today: Max Verstappen ruins title hopes with PETULANT late race actions

Should Max Verstappen have been black-flagged?

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."

Going further post-race, Rosberg did not change his initial assessment of the incident.

"It looked like a very intentional retaliation," Rosberg added on Sky Sports F1.

"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."

READ MORE: Max Verstappen hit with huge F1 penalty after ridiculous crash

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