Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsToro Rosso

Verstappen takes dig at Massa for criticism

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Max Verstappen has taken a dig at Felipe Massa in Montreal, reminding him of his crash at last year's Canadian Grand Prix after being criticised by the Brazilian.

The two drivers were in the driver press conference in Canada on Thursday following Massa's criticism of Verstappen's accident in Monaco. With Verstappen penalised for hitting Romain Grosjean, Massa was asked if he stood by his post-race comments that the 17-year-old's move had been "very dangerous".

"First of all, I said when I had the interview after the race, he was not penalised and they asked me what I thought and I said ‘I think he needs to be penalised because what he did was wrong'," Massa said. "So that’s what I said and I think, especially when you’re in your first year, 17-years old and if you do something like that and you’re not penalised, it’s completely wrong.

"I think the FIA needs to be strong in a proper way which is what they did actually, that’s the only thing I said and I don’t change my mind. That’s what I believe. We need to follow the rules. I said what he did was wrong. That’s what I said."

Following Massa's quotes, Verstappen then responded by bringing up last year's collision between the Williams driver and Sergio Perez at the end of the race in Canada.

"Well, everybody can have their opinion, that’s the first thing but I looked at my data, I didn’t brake any later," Verstappen said. "I have braked later in the race before that but on the lap I crashed, it was exactly the same lap as the lap before and I got my penalty.

"I’m focusing on Canada right now and maybe you should review the race from last year and see what happened there."

Click here for technical analysis of the braking challenge at the Canadian Grand Prix

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.