Mercedes blame Verstappen: "He always wants to force instead of concede"

The opinions about the incident between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen at Monza are strongly divided. Andrew Shovlin, trackside engineering director at Mercedes, blames the incident on Verstappen and doesn't have a good word to say about the Dutchman.

"Valtteri drove a great race to get back on the podium. It was such a shame that we had to take a penalty with him because a weekend like his would normally be rewarded with victory," Shovlin told Sky Sports.

Mercedes has no good word to say about Verstappen

About Verstappen, the engineer has no good word to say. "It's sad that Lewis' race had to end like this, but it's a relief that he had the extra protection of the halo today, otherwise it would have ended very badly. Max would never have made the corner, but it seems he always chooses to force it rather than concede a position to Lewis."

"It's frustrating with such a fast car to leave here with so few points, but the reality is that we need to perform better on many points. Valtteri can be proud of what he has done, but as a team, we have to be critical of ourselves in some areas of performance and reliability. We haven't performed at the level we need to, so fixing that has to be our priority now," Shovlin concluded.