Max Verstappen, the 18-year-old making his debut for Red Bull, capitalised on the crash to become Formula 1s youngest-ever victor ahead of the Ferrari pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel.
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Wolff also said he will continue the team’s policy of allowing the drivers to continue racing, something Rosberg admits he is not happy about. Both cars then span out of control into the safety gravel.
Rosberg now holds a 39-point gap over Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in the drivers’ standings, with Hamilton a further four points behind.
“And then obviously with Lewis, maybe he saw the difference of speed, and he chose to go at the same time”.
“To win in the first race is such an awesome feeling”.
In defending his lead, Rosberg moved to block his team-mate, Hamilton took to the grass, spun, and then collided with the German.
Asked whether Rosberg had also apologised on that basis, Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff said: “I think he said he understood it was hard for the team”.
Both drivers were summoned to face the stewards after the race, but escaped without punishment. “We let the drivers race and sometimes this can happen”. “I’m sure every person in here has an opinion, but it doesn’t make any difference”, said the 31-year-old.
“[Sunday] was just a couple of unfortunate coincidences that ended up in us losing as a team for me it was different than Spa”. I was very surprised that Lewis went for the inside anyway. ‘Lewis is too aggressive.
Told that it it sounds like he blames Hamilton, Rosberg insisted: “I didn’t say that”.
World championship leader Rosberg and Hamilton were scrapping for the lead when they wrecked the team’s hopes of another one-two triumph and revived bitter memories of their collision in the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix on Turn Four.
TW: “What I said to the two of them is, fundamentally they are sitting in those cars, they are responsible for bringing those cars home, and they failed to do that”.
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“Max Verstappen, you are a race victor, fantastic”, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said over team radio after his driver crossed the finish line. “We’ll just keep racing, we’ll obviously try to make sure this doesn’t happen again and that’s it”. “Nico closed up the inside with what looked to be a clean maneuver”. “I was aware of the situation and saw Lewis coming closer, so I went for the usual racing driver action of closing the inside line and closing the door as early as I could”, said Rosberg.
