Priestley: 'Verstappen and Hamilton behaved very childishly'

Verstappen had to give a place back to Hamilton, so he braked to let him pass, but the Brit stayed behind him. In the end, the Red Bull Racing driver braked harder and Hamilton crashed into the Dutchman. Priestley suggests that the drivers knew exactly what they were doing and is therefore particularly angry with Verstapppen.

"Max Verstappen knew exactly what he was doing. You don’t need to do that to let a driver past, and you normally wouldn’t do that to let a driver past. The fact that Max hit the brakes is utterly dangerous and unforgivable."

'Why was Lewis stuck behind him?'

Hamilton also knew what he was doing according to the Brit. Verstappen didn't want to be first across the DRS line, but neither did the seven-time world champion. Priestley just doesn't understand why he stayed behind the 24-year-old for so long.

"Why on earth didn’t Lewis Hamilton just blast past Max Verstappen? There was plenty of space, it wasn’t like Max was blocking. Lewis could have kept his foot down and blasted through. What if [your rival] has got an engine problem? What if his car is failing or he has got a technical failure? You don’t slow down and sit behind him? That was planned. He knew exactly what Max was doing there."

Both deserved a penalty

In comparing the two drivers, the former McLaren engineer does indicate that he does not understand why the Limburger received a penalty and Hamilton did not. "Max knows he has got a car behind so slowing to that extent and then hitting the brakes - absolutely unacceptable. Dangerous driving .He needs a penalty for that in my opinion. But Lewis is also driving unnecessarily slow.y And if we’re going to start dishing out penalties and warnings for drivers for driving unnecessarily slowly on a very past part of a very fast racetrack, well then isn’t Lewis guilty of something very similar?"

The Briton's conclusion is pretty clear: both drivers were being very childish. "This was two of the world’s best drivers in my opinion acting very childish and child-like. Both of them. Both drivers were playing a very tactical game. A game that doesn’t make Formula 1 look good at all and both of them are playing a game that potentially could cause danger."