Max Verstappen refused to di🌠smiss allegations that his late-race clash with G𝕴eorge Russell in the Spanish Grand Prix was intentional.

Four-time Formula 1 champion Verstappen and Mercedes rival Russell came to blows at Turn 5 in the final laps of the Barcelona race, resulting in the Red Bull driver picking up a 10-se൩cond time penalty.

Verstappen had slowed down on the approach to the tight left-hander, seemingly to hand back fourth place back to Russell as per Red Bull’s instructions, only to then speed 🌱up again and slam into the Mercedes.

This was the second major incident between the two during the race, with 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Verstappen having run wide at Turn 1 while defending fourth place after the safety car😼 restart with six laps to go.

Verstappen had taken t🍷he escape road after their clash and rejoined ahead of Russell, which kicked off a chain of events as Red Bull instructed Verstappen to give way to Russell

Asked if his move on the Briton was intentional, a defiant Verstappen simply told Sky F1: “Doesn't matter.𒊎”

Pressed further that such an incident matters to the viewers, h♒e replied: “Yeah, okay. That's great. I prefer to speak about the race than one single moment.”

When asked if a number of frustrating incidents during the race, includinꦯg the call to switch to the slower hard t🐈yre under the safety car, prompted that move on Russell, he replied: “No”.

When told a controversial incident like this takes shine away from a driver who 🐈had pulled off a brilliant pass on McLaren’s Oscar Piastri to win the Emilia Romagna GP just two wee🎉ks prior, the Dutchman only said “Is it [so]?” 

He added: “Yeah🎃ꦬ, okay, well that's your opinion. We will leave it there.”

Max Verstappen penalised for George Russell clash

The 10-second penalty demot﷽ed Verstappen from fifth to 10th, leavi🔯ng with a single championship point from the Spanish GP.

It was a significant setback for the 27-year-old in his hopes of defending the title, with Piastri leading another McLaren 1-2 after a dominant race for the Woking-based sqജuad.

When told about the impact of the penalty on his title chances, Verstappen sඣaid: ꦦ”If there are any. I think we are way too slow anyway to fight for the title. That was clear again today.

“We tried to do three stops and it was qui🎀te good but we also needed it because we actually had quite a bit of degr🎉adation on the tyres so that was good. 

“Unfortunately, of course, the safety car came out in the end🃏 and we basically ran out of the tyres at the end and the hard tyre was clearly not the tyre. 

“When you only have six laps to go eveಞryone can go flat out, I was severely grip limited on the hard.”

Red Bull elected to bring Verstappen into the pits under the safety car even though it didn’t have a relatively unused set of soft and medium tyres to bolt on, leaving him with the slower hard tyre for the fina෴l part of the race.

Verstappen admitted that Red Bull needs to analyse whether it would have 🥂been better to keep him out on track, which would have handed him track position over Piastri and Lando Norris but left him vulnerable on worn tyres.

”We have to look at it again. Of course, new tyres or at least fresh tyre♉s, they make quite a bღit of difference as well. 

“No one maybe expected that the hard tyre was so poor but when it was only six laps maybe it would have be🌟en better to stay out but of course that's really easy for me to say now.”