Max Verstappen says he understands why the FIA have requested he not repeat his victory burnout celebration from the Styrian Grand Prix, after race director Michael Masi said it wouldn’t be tolerated at future races.
The Dutchman took an emphatic win at Red Bull’s home race to extend his championship lead over Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and as he crossed the finish line, he slowed to a crawl before doing a burnout besides his celebrating mechanics.
“It was not an ideal situation, which is why I spoke to the team immediately and told them accordingly, that it’s something that would not be tolerated in the future,” said Masi in response to the celebration.
Verstappen said he understood why it might not have been the safest thing to do, after a similar situation occurred during a Formula Renault 3.5 Series race in 2015 at the same circuit and ended with a huge shunt, involving Nicholas Latifi (see video below).
“I’ll try to do a doughnut next time,” joked Verstappen, when he was asked about the celebration ahead of this weekend’s Austrian GP.
“I understand of course about safety. But I looked in my mirrors, went all the way to the right, took it easy. Everyone was on the left. I just did a burnout.
“OK, if it’s not allowed, I won’t do it again. At the time I thought it was really funny and safe.
“But of course I understand that they don’t want to see this happen again, which is fine for me.”
Latifi, who was the car behind Verstappen at the time, albeit three seconds away, called Verstappen’s action “dangerous” having been involved in that crash.
“When I was coming to the finish line, I saw Max pulling to the inside to celebrate with the team like most drivers do so I just made sure to stay as far to the left as possible,” said the Canadian.
“Obviously, in that situation there were no cars directly behind him that were racing and obviously that was the situation, all those years ago in 2015.
“I was racing with another car quite close and as a result had my eye [on the car behind and did not] expect a car to be right in front of me on the grid.
“So it can end very badly as we saw back in 2015. There just has to be a bit of a compromise in that sense.
“It was dangerous so I don’t think a lot of other cars will be doing that in the future. It is probably best to not slow down that much.”
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