Niki Lauda was another big name in the paddock to criticise Max Verstappen's late-race lunge down the inside of Sebastian Vettel at the turn 14 hairpin. The contact ruined both of their races and landed Verstappen a time penalty as well.
Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda says Max Verstappen was completely at fault for his clash with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and that he needs to "sort himself out".
Lauda added to the mounting list of critiques saying Verstappen's young age was no longer an excuse and that he should be above mistakes of such a kind by this point in his career.
"It was completely Max’s fault," said Lauda.
"When you compete in more races you should get more clever – especially when you want to win or challenge for the championship – but he is going the other way.
"He needs to sort himself out. Nobody can help him."
"In that situation he has to change his style otherwise it will happen again
"I said to him afterwards ‘look, the race is long and you threw your podium away.
"It is not a question of age because he has done so many races now. I gave him room, I wasn’t planning on resisting, but he had a big lock-up and that is when we crashed. We are not happy because we had the car to win.
"He is not young,” Lauda added.
"He is old in Formula 1 now so he is like everybody else. It is not necessary because it hurts him as well."
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