Max Verstappen’s recent remarks have continued to ruffle feathers, this time getting under the skin of a former world champion.
The reigning world champ has been a vocal critic of the new sprint formats with his frustration boiling over in Azerbaijan.
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During the sprint race around the circuit, Verstappen’s Red Bull sustained side pod damage after Mercedes’ George Russell got his elbows out during an overtake.
The incident saw the two-time world champion confront Russell after the race, labelling his rival a “d***head”.
After the race he took his hatrid for the new format to even greater heights, calling for it to be scrapped immediately.
“Just scrap the whole thing,” he said in the post-sprint press conference.
“I think it’s just important to go back to what we have, and make sure that every team can fight for a win.
“That’s what we have to try and aim for and [not] try to implement all this kind of artificial excitement. I would say I got bored through today’s qualifying, to be honest.
“I like to have one particular qualifying where you just put everything in it, and that was yesterday, which I of course enjoy and then they have to do it again today.
“I’m like, ‘my god, another qualifying?’ I just don’t really enjoy that.”
Those comments didn’t sit well with 1996 Formula 1 world champion turned media analyst Damon Hill who torched the Dutch superstar and labelled him a “poor loser”.
“We should just give Max Verstappen the championship and just not bother with anything else,” he told Sky F1.
“Sorry, that’s just sulking. That’s a poor loser. Sorry. It’s fair for everyone, it’s the same competition. He should be basically thinking about tomorrow, thinking about the championship, and putting it behind him.”
Verstappen’s refusal to accept any blame for the coming together between he and Russell left Hill linking him to previous champions of the sport who had the win at all costs mentality.
“I think this is the sort of mindset we’ve seen in people like Schumacher and Senna,” he said.
“There are just some people who will not accept that they have any part to play in stuff that happens.
“If you cast your mind back to Monza [2021] with Lewis Hamilton, he just didn’t back out of the corner. He’s done it himself, he’s a hard racer – they’re both hard racers, George and Max, and this is what happens when you get a rock and a hard place together.
“It looks like you have to have that kind of default ‘I’m in the right and everyone else is out of step’ [mentality].
“I don’t agree with it myself. You have to take the rough with the smooth to be able to make it through any sport, because it’s not going to be always good. It’s not always going to be you in the right.
“There are going to be times when you get it wrong. He qualified lower than his teammate and he was on the outside of the corner going into it, so he was vulnerable, and he should have understood that, being on the outside, he was going to be vulnerable from attack from George who was there down the inside.”
Verstappen was overshadowed during the fourth race of the 2023 season by teammate Sergio Perez who showed once again why he’s the street circuit king.
It was another 1-2 finish as the mighty Red Bulls streaked away from the field to cross the line comfortably ahead of third placed Charles Leclerc.
The win means Perez has cut Verstappen’s world championship lead down to just six points with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso third, 27 points behind Perez.
The grid will now head to America for the Miami Grand Prix with the race set to take place on Monday May 8 from 5:30am (AEST).
