Max Verstappen, Kimi Raikkonen defend themselves after Belgian Grand Prix incidents

Max Verstappen, the young gun of the Formula 1 field, continues to race just on the edge of the rules and perhaps over the line of what’s considered acceptable by his fellow drivers. Red Bull’s Verstappen was involved in a crash that sent himself and both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen of Ferrari from the top of the grid to the back of it on the very first lap of the Belgian Grand Prix from the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday.

Verstappen, starting from second on the grid, didn’t get a good start and was overtaken by both Räikkönen and Vettel, who started third and fourth, respectively. But around the first corner, Verstappen decided he would fight back right away and tried to take the inside line. He didn’t give Räikkönen much room, and Räikkönen in turn was unable to do anything to stop Vettel from hitting him.

Vettel spun out while both Verstappen and Räikkönen took significant front wing damage and had to take an early pit stop.

But it didn’t end there. Later in the race, after a red flag and a bit of racing, Räikkönen was behind Verstappen and clearly had more speed than the young driver. Räikkönen tried to overtake but Verstappen moved to cut him off. This isn’t disallowed, but Verstappen moved very late and he only moved once Räikkönen had committed to a move.

If not for very, very good braking from Räikkönen, the two surely would have been involved in a crash for the second time on the day.

“Clearly his only interest is pushing me off the circuit completely,” Räikkönen said to his team over the radio during the race. “Come on, this is just f****** ridiculous now, he’s just f****** turning when I’m at full speed on the right.”

Verstappen wasn’t having any of Vettel’s comments after the race. He said that Räikkönen’s comments were “ridiculous.”

“But especially after Turn 1 when they did something like that,” Verstappen said. “I’m not going to give up my position to them that easy afterwards. To be honest, I think that’s a big lie. I’m just defending my position. If somebody doesn’t like it, that’s his own problem.”

Verstappen, in other words, thinks that Räikkönen is exaggerating, and he thinks that Vettel is at fault for the crash on the first turn of the race, saying the Ferrari driver turned inside when there were already two cars abreast. While that’s true, it hardly seemed like there was room for Verstappen to squeeze through when he made his move.

“It’s good television when somebody is moaning,” Verstappen said.

Vettel finished the race above both drivers, in sixth. Räikkönen came in in ninth, while Verstappen finished just outside the points at 11th. He started to gain on the Williams of Felipe Massa in the closing laps, but was unable to get close enough to make a move. Verstappen’s team said that the damage done on the opening lap prevented them from getting back into the points as it limited their driver’s overtaking ability.

Nico Rosberg of Mercedes won the race, and remained incident free just ahead of all the chaos.