George Russell and Max Verstappen have shared their reactions following a remarkable late-race collision between them that resulted in a penalty for the Red Bull driver and dramatically altered the final race order of the Spanish Grand Prix.
It was a dramatic conclusion to the race in Barcelona, as the whole picture was dramatically shaken up when a Safety Car was deployed in the latter stages after Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes pulled off track with a mechanical issue, prompting most of the frontrunners to pit again.
Verstappen only had the hard tyre option available, leaving the Red Bull driver vulnerable to attack from those behind, and that's how it panned out once the racing action got back underway.
After Verstappen endured a major snap following the restart and made contact with Charles Leclerc, falling back to P4 during the scuffle, Russell attempted to take advantage and similarly charge past.
2025 Spanish Grand Prix: A furious Max Verstappen makes contact with Russell in closing stages
Verstappen managed to hold onto the place, but only by taking to the exit road and emerging ahead of Russell. In order to avoid a penalty for gaining an advantage off track, his race engineer recommended that he allow the Mercedes driver to pass by.
Despite some fiery complaints over the radio, he appeared to back off at Turn 5 and invite Russell to take the outside line, but quickly returned to his usual speed and collided with him on the penultimate lap.
Offering his take on the incident, Russell said afterwards: “My perspective is that I just got crashed into! I don’t really know why or what the thinking was behind it. In the end, I’m glad that I continued with little damage and ultimately it punished him a lot more than me.
“That’s how Max goes racing. As I said, he was in P4, I was in P5 – I ended up P4, he ended up P10, so from my side I’m glad that I managed to finish the race.
“Not really sure what he was thinking because he cost himself and his team a lot of points, so no conversation [is] really required.”
Russell claimed his best race result since the Miami Grand Prix
The incident saw Verstappen receive a 10-second time penalty, which dropped him from fifth place to 10th, opening up a more comprehensive gap to his competitors at McLaren in the drivers’ standings.
He later briefly reflected on the crash, stating: “I don’t need to say anything about it because it doesn’t matter anyway.
“I had a big moment there in the last corner. Unfortunately the hard tyres had very low grip so that was quite painful. Basically, we just ran out of tyres. In hindsight, was it better to stay out? Maybe, I don’t know. It’s always easy to say afterwards. Because of those hard tyres, you get into those situations.
“I think [the strategy] was good, I think it worked for us. It was the best way forward. It was racy and I liked it. Unfortunately we didn’t get the benefits at the end.”
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