Both Mercedes and Red Bull team bosses have spoken out since Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton collided during the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon.
The pair were racing alongside one another before they collided at the chicane.
They both ended up in the gravel, with the Red Bull mounted on top of the Mercedes.
Before getting out of the car unaided, Verstappen took to the radio and said; “That’s what you get when you don’t leave space.”
The Dutchman headed away from the incident without checking on the condition of Hamilton, who was continuing to try and release his car from the grips of the RB16B.
Both drivers came away from the collision unharmed, however, stewards have been investigating the incident since the race ended – with a hefty penalty likely.
Speaking in a post-race interview, Red Bull’s Christian Horner; “Max had the momentum. He had enough space around the outside, I think Lewis gave enough through the run into Turn 1 and I think our opinion would be that Lewis perhaps closed him too much into Turn 2.
“Very frustrating to exit the race. Most important thing today is that the Halo has done its job, because it’s an awkward accident with the car coming down effectively on top of the Mercedes. Thankfully nobody was hurt.
“I think if you took the middle ground on it you’d say it was a racing incident. But I genuinely think that you could argue Max could have bailed to the left, you could argue that Lewis should have given him more space. To apportion blame more to one side than another, I genuinely think that in that incident, it’s very difficult to do.
“I think he earnt the right to have a bit more space. I’m disappointed that Toto would say it was a professional foul but I think it’s a racing incident and thankfully nobody was injured today.”
From Mercedes’ point of view, Team Principal, Toto Wolff said; “The stewards are going to decide who is to blame. There is predominantly to blame, I guess, we’ve seen that in the past. I think in football you’d say it was a tactical foul. He probably knew that if Lewis stays ahead, that is the race win possibly.
“I think when you look at Turn 4, Lewis backed out and that was quite a thing because probably you know he’s staying ahead of you. And then incidents where they actually crash, it was clear for Max in there that they would crash.
“I think if we don’t manage that in the right way, this is going to continue. They had a high-speed crash at Silverstone, we had one car ending on top of the other one on Lewis’ head here, so how far can you go? Maybe next time we’ll have a high-speed crash and land on each other.”
