Verstappen: "He drove into me"

The incident ended his race early on after contact with the Mercedes broke his differential.

Max Verstappen has laid the blame solely at the feet of Lewis Hamilton for their clash in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver had a decent start and was sizing up a move on Hamilton into turn one, which seemed to be a done deal but the two made contact on the exit of turn one, resulting in the Dutchman getting a puncture and damage that would eventually result in his retirement.

“I had a good run onto the straight,” he told the BBC. “Going for the inside, at one point under braking I was next to him. Going into the corner I was ahead.

“And then of course you always try to squeeze each other a bit. But I think there was still enough space on the left. He drove into my left-rear, gave me a puncture and also destroyed the diff.”

When asked if he felt that the decision from the stewards was fair to not penalise Hamilton, Verstappen added: “From my side, not.

Red Bull's weekend went from bad to worse with Daniel Ricciardo retiring with a loss of power moments after Verstappen.