Verstappen on Hamilton incident: 'He blocked me into the last corner'

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton clashed 'old-fashionedly' in the Sprint Shootout in Spielberg. The former title rivals drove slightly in each other's way, but the stewards saw no reason to put the incidents under a magnifying glass. Verstappen explains what happened during the press conference after the Formula 1 sprint race.

Incident between Hamilton and Verstappen in Sprint Shootout

During the first part of qualifying for the F1 Sprint, Verstappen and Hamilton were engaged in a duel at the Red Bull Ring. The latter would eventually get stranded in SQ1, after seeing a line go through his time due to track limits and then failing to improve because of the traffic in the last lap.

Speaking about the incident with his old rival, Verstappen said the following: "Yes, he blocked me into the last corner so I had to brake more and I lost three-tenths. So that wasn't ideal, I think not correct."

"Yes, there were still a few seconds on the clock so I wasn't sure if my lap time was going to be safe so I wanted to continue, but yes, I ran out of time and space with the two cars like that, which was a bit of a shame," Verstappen continued. It made little difference to the championship leader in the end: he effortlessly advanced to SQ2 and SQ3, to put his RB19 on pole position for the sprint race as well.