Toto Wolff has described Max Verstappen's driving as "refreshing but dangerous" after he was criticised by the Ferrari drivers in the Belgian Grand Prix.
Verstappen was involved in a first corner collision with both Ferrari drivers, which Kimi Raikkonen did not blame him for but Sebastian Vettel said the Dutchman triggered. Raikkonen was angered by Verstappen's defending during the race and Wolff believes the driving style is likely to result in an accident at some stage.
“Maximum attack!" Wolff said when asked for his opinion on Verstappen's moves. "He’s refreshing, for me. He’s a young boy that I like a lot. He comes in here, no fear, no respect, puts the elbows out and it reminds me of the great ones.
"It reminds me of Lewis, it reminds me of Ayrton Senna and you can clearly see that some guys around here are starting to think twice how to overtake him. Until now all that has proven that he’s on the right track.
"The FIA has not penalised it, the only thing that happened is he was given a hard time in some driver briefings, maybe next time he’s going to have an even harder time in the next driver briefing. I just fear that it might end up in the wall heavily one day. As much as we like his [unpredictability] … for me it’s refreshing but it’s dangerous.”
And Wolff sees the Turn 1 incident as a big help to Lewis Hamilton as the championship leader managed to climb through to finish third as team-mate Nico Rosberg won at Spa.
“I think Turn 1 was more helpful because it wiped out three of our direct competitors. Unfortunate for them but obviously they would have been between Nico and Lewis towards the end of the race.”
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