Why Antonelli shunt was so quickly "case closed" for chilled Verstappen

The World Champion was quick to shrug off any disappointment in Austria

The Austrian GP is the biggest race of the year for Red Bull and a massive one for the tens of thousands of Max Verstappen fans who travel south from the Netherlands.

In that context a Turn 3 retirement for the World Champion was a total disaster. And yet to his credit the man himself shrugged it off and was very generous to Kimi Antonelli after he was taken out by the Italian teenager.

He may have let himself down with the road rage incident with George Russell in Barcelona, but his measured reaction to the Austrian disappointment was an indication that – for the most part – Verstappen is growing into the role of F1 elder statesman, able to deal with the ebb and flow of fortune.

He knows too that he’s had his own moments, especially in his early days, and it helped that Antonelli was quick to apologise.

His calm demeanour may also have been confirmation that he really doesn’t believe that he’s still in with a shot of the title, despite Montreal showing that McLaren can be vulnerable.

He might have stolen sixth place in Austria, but that was probably all that was on offer anyway, so in that sense wasn’t such a big deal.

On top of that the ultra cynical view is that no points for Red Bull could be quite handy if there’s a top three constructors’ championship performance element that could make it easier for Verstappen to walk away from his 2026 and beyond contract in the coming weeks.

You really couldn’t make up the fact that he was taken out by a car from the team he might want to join…

“Of course, it's not what you want,” he said when I asked about the disappointment of an early retirement in front of his fans. “At the end of the day, probably I'm the most disappointed about it, but at the end that's racing as well.

“We've had a lot of great moments here, so probably we got a little bit spoiled with that as well at the same time. So sometimes that's the case.”

He added: “Every year for me is different, because cars change, tyres change as well. So you can't say that ‘Oh, because we were good the last few years at this track, it should be no problem, it will be good.’ There are always so many factors that come into play that you have to nail to be competitive. And clearly, this weekend, we were not.”

Verstappen admitted that initially he didn’t know who had hit him.

“We had a really good start,” he said. “So that was I think already a nice improvement from I think the last two races where I was not particularly happy with the start. Then in Turn 3, the race was over. Of course at that point, I didn't know what happened.

“We had quite a bit of damage, the car nearly turned off. I guess unlucky a little bit yesterday in qualifying [with yellow flags], and unlucky today in the race.

“But of course, if you look at the weekend, we were not where we wanted to be, I guess, in terms of pace. And we have to try and analyse that, and hopefully have a little bit of a more positive weekend next week.”

Antonelli, who kept his helmet on, admitted that he couldn’t hear the other side of their subsequent conversation.

“I just asked what happened,” said Verstappen. “Because he was the only car that was there with me with his wheel hanging off. So I was like, I'm pretty sure that he hit me. And then of course I saw the footage once I came back.

“It happens, I mean every driver has made a mistake like that in their careers. And also Kimi is a very big talent, so he learns from that, and that's all fine.”

Pressed on Antonelli he said: “I spoke to him already. But for me it was already case closed anyway, I saw what happened. And no one does these things on purpose. It can happen.”

As we approach the mid-point of the season at Silverstone Verstappen is 61 points behind World Championship leader Oscar Piastri, and thus the slim hopes that he could keep in touch with the McLaren drivers taking points off each other are fading.

“I was never thinking about that anyway,” he insisted, “So we just take it race-by-race, and we try to just find more performance with the car, try to learn from all the things that we are doing, and then we'll see what happens.

“The McLaren pace, I don't think about at the moment. I just think that for sure there is more in it, but we'll see if we can find it.”

Updates are on the way, but he admits that it’s impossible to judge their potential impact.

“Is it enough to challenge McLaren? I'm not sure. Probably not. But I also don't want to sound depressed, or whatever.

“I know that everyone in the team always gives it 100%, and we keep pushing, keep learning, keep trying to bring more performance to the car, and that's the only thing that we can do.”

McLaren was utterly dominant in Austria, but Verstappen hasn’t given up hope of making the Woking team’s life difficult on occasion.

“It's a bit hit and miss, right? Because if you say to me that question in Montreal, it's a bit different. So some tracks probably work a bit better for certain cars, and then other tracks, it's a bit closer. In general they're definitely the benchmark.”