Max Verstappen gives verdict on Sainz - Piastri collision amid 2016 Belgian GP comparison

Max Verstappen gives verdict on Sainz – Piastri collision amid 2016 Belgian GP comparison. Verstappen on the Sainz - Piastri collision at Spa.

La Source: a dangerous corner
Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz had to retire from the 2023 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix following damage to the right side of his SF-23 car as a result of the contact at the start at La Source with Oscar Piastri, who also didn’t complete the first lap. The Spanish driver of Ferrari did not vehemently blame the McLaren rookie, but he emphasized that the Australian racing driver lacked some experience because attempting to dive so aggressively on the inside at that point leads to trouble.

Carlos Sainz’s argument was supported by Red Bull Racing Dutch driver Max Verstappen, who in 2016 executed a similar maneuver to Oscar Piastri’s with the same outcome. In that edition of the Belgian Grand Prix, the Dutchman started from the front row alongside Nico Rosberg but didn’t have a great start and then tried to recover a position on Kimi Raikkonen, delaying his braking on the inside at La Source. Sebastian Vettel, in the other Ferrari car, on the outside of his Maranello teammate squeezed in from the outside towards the inside, and the Finn, in turn, closed the trajectory, resulting in Max Verstappen being caught between the wall and the Ferrari number #7, with Sebastian Vettel ending up spinning in a domino effect.

Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen had similar reactions over the radio. “He turned into me as if I didn’t exist,” the Australian said after the incident, while Max Verstappen in 2016 communicated simply: “He turned into me,” with Christian Horner explaining during the subsequent red flag that Kimi Raikkonen was blameless in that scenario because Sebastian Vettel set up the corner without leaving space, triggering a chain reaction also caused by Max Verstappen’s somewhat optimistic dive on the inside.

Certainly, the Dutchman learned from what happened seven years ago, and yesterday at the start, he stayed out of trouble: “My start was good,” he said in the press conference, “but then I saw that Carlos Sainz was locking up, and the instinctive reaction would have been to go on the inside, but Piastri was also diving into the corner. I immediately understood what would happen because the same thing happened to me in 2016. So I decided to go wide and stay out of trouble. It wasn’t over yet because it remained to be seen if they had sustained damage after their contact. For instance, I noticed that Piastri couldn’t steer anymore. I definitely lost some momentum in all that confusion, but in the end, the objective of avoiding damage in the first few meters was achieved, and I also managed to pass Sainz at Les Combes. From that point, my race started, and the turning point came after the pit stop because I damaged the first set of soft tires a bit, stuck behind the DRS train formed by Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.” – the Red Bull driver concluded at the end of the Belgian Grand Prix.