F1 fans share the ‘clear’ penalty they think Max Verstappen should have received after ‘absurd’ end to the Spanish GP

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Max Verstappen’s Spanish Grand Prix looked so promising at stages, but he managed to throw it all away after a late safety car thwarted his charge.

The Red Bull star was the only driver on a new set of hard tyres at the resumption of the race on lap 61, with all his rivals around him on softs.

Verstappen survived a scary snap on the exit of the final corner, where he could easily have ended up in the wall, before being overtaken by Charles Leclerc.

Then George Russell attempted a late lunge on him into turn one, which resulted in the Dutchman going off the track to remain ahead. Later, he was asked to give the position back, which caused chaos.

Verstappen has been ‘hurt’ by Yuki Tsunoda at Red Bull and is feeling the effect of not having a strong teammate to back him up.

Even Lando Norris warned that Verstappen had a perfect chance to prove everyone wrong coming into the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, but he failed to take advantage of it.

READ MORE: Max Verstappen warned he faces ‘serious headache’ if Red Bull struggle with one thing at the Spanish Grand Prix

F1 fans slam ‘absurd’ Max Verstappen overtake on George Russell during the Spanish Grand Prix

Red Bull had a ‘terrible’ Spanish Grand Prix problem, and their approach to their race strategy said it all at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

On a three-stop strategy, Verstappen being on the hards at the end massively hindered his chances. In fact, when asked to give a position back to Russell, he decided to catch him by surprise and send another lunge on him. It resulted in heavy contact and a 10-second post-race penalty.

Fans took to X (formerly known as Twitter) almost immediately to complain about his actions, which seemed aggressive to say the least.

“Max deserves a race suspension for that. He purposely hit Russell. Wow,” said one fan.

“Max is a total clown,” said another, who agreed with them. “Max is definitely getting a 10-second penalty. That’s absurd,” wrote another.

“That’s the Max I know. Typical behaviour from him,” said someone else, who wasn’t surprised by his actions.

Some even campaigned for stronger punishments, “Clear black flag.”, while another fan said, “No penalty for deliberately ramming someone??” just before he received a 10-second time penalty, which dropped him to 10th.

Nico Rosberg criticises Max Verstappen for ‘horrible’ move on George Russell

It has been a while since Verstappen made a move which caused a bit of a reaction. Since being at the front, he has been a little less aggressive.

However, Sunday’s move was a real sign of frustration from the Dutchman, who is perhaps starting to realise that he is going to struggle to win this season.

Nico Rosberg wasn’t pleased by his actions and criticised them, campaigning for him to be disqualified from the race at one stage.

“He needs to get black flagged, he just crashed into Russell on purpose. Just to prove a point,” he said during Sky Sports F1’s coverage. “You don’t need to [watch it again], that was horrible. That does not look good.”