Max Verstappen says it was was important for him to apologize to Oscar Piastri for hitting him at Turn 1 at the start of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, even if he didn’t agree with his subsequent penalty for it.
The Dutchman got a good start and had already overtaken Carlos Sainz when he attempted a move down the inside of Piastri under braking for the first corner. Verstappen took to the inside curb but was never fully alongside and tapped Piastri into a spin — also pirouetting 360 degrees himself — to put the McLaren driver to the back of the field.
“Launch was good and then I tried to grab the inside, and I quickly realized, once I committed to it, that the gap was closing and I wanted to try and get out of it, because I didn’t want to cause a crash with Oscar,” Verstappen said. “Unfortunately we still clipped each other, but I already apologized to Oscar. It’s not what you want to happen and especially not with him — he’s a great guy. It happened. It’s just a bit unfortunate.”
Verstappen was given a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision, one of a multiple handed out for the same infringement during the race, but suggested he was unhappy at the punishment.
“Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it. I’m just happy that the season is over,” he said. “For me, the most important thing that I had to do is just apologize to Oscar, because I have nothing to gain, nothing to lose. I went for it. It didn’t work out. And especially also for him that we both spun. It’s not nice — he’s a friend of mine, so I don’t want to have any, like, weird feelings or whatever, going into the break.
“I don’t understand anything [about penalties] anymore, but it’s fine, whatever. I’m not gonna get angry about stuff like that. It’s not worth my time. Just have a break. Like I said, the most important thing is that I apologize to Oscar, and that’s it.
“I think when you’re in that position, you’re focusing on the car ahead, you commit. How I feel it as well … when you start first or second, you never really looked behind. So I went for it, and then I realized, ’S***, he doesn’t see me there.’ So I was trying to get out of it, but then we still clipped. Of course, that is on me, but I was expecting maybe 20 seconds, 30 seconds, I don’t know, stop-and-go? It’s maybe something to talk about for next time.”
