At the start of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Max Verstappen snapped up a 10-second penalty after a daring dive down the inside of Oscar Piastri instead resulted in the two drivers making contact.

Verstappen was highly apologetic to Piastri — but he didn’t hold back in expressing his annoyance with race direction, both during and after the race.

Max Verstappen slams FIA stewards as ‘stupid idiots’ in Abu Dhabi GP

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

The start of the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix kicked off with immediate drama. Then the lights went out and the field took off, Red Bull champion Max Verstappen saw a gap on the inside of Oscar Piastri’s McLaren and launched himself into it.

Unfortunately, the gap shrank almost instantly — and it meant that Verstappen and Piastri made contact.

Verstappen spun in a full 360 and was able to get right back into the battle; Piastri, meanwhile, had a much harder time recovering and rejoined the field at the very rear of the grid. Both drivers went on to finish the race, with Verstappen in fifth and Piastri in 10th.

Verstappen was issued a 10-second penalty for the drama — something that displeased a driver who has been at odds with race control and the FIA all season long.

“Can we get 20 seconds, too?” Verstappen asked over the radio, clearly annoyed. “Stupid idiots.”

The question of what moves constitute a penalty has been raised recently in this latter part of the F1 2024 season. Some moves that seemingly warranted a penalty were left unpunished, while other drivers were slapped with large time penalties for seemingly minor issues.

Speaking to media, including PlanetF1.com, after the race, Verstappen was still clearly annoyed. When asked if he understood the penalty he received, he shot back, “I don’t understand anything anymore.

“But it’s fine. whatever. I’m not gonna get angry about stuff like that. It’s not worth my time.

“The most important thing is that I apologized to Oscar, and that’s it.”

In fact, apologizing to Piastri was one of the very first things Verstappen addressed when he arrived in the media zone.

“I already apologized to Oscar,” he clarified.

“It was not what you want to happen, and especially not with him. He’s a great guy, but it happened. It’s just a bit unfortunate.”

Verstappen went on to call Piastri a friend, and stated that his apology was meant to dispel any “weird feelings” they might have carried into the winter break.

The four-time World Champion then went on to explain the first-corner crash from his perspective.

“Launch was good and then I tried to go up the inside and I quickly realized once I committed to it that the gap was closing, and I wanted to try and get out of it, because I didn’t want to eventually, of course, crash with Oscar,” he said.

“But unfortunately, we still clipped each other.”

Verstappen went on to shed some light on the mentality of the first-row starters.

“The thing was that, I think when you’re in that position, you’re focusing on the car ahead,” he explained. “You commit.

“I mean, that’s how I feel it as well: You never really look behind.

“I went for it, and then I realized, ‘Shit, he doesn’t see me there.’ So I was trying to get out of it, but then we still clipped.

“Of course, that is on me.”

But even as he took responsibility for the incident, Verstappen circled back to his concerns with the FIA, saying that, as far as penalties were concerned, “I was expecting maybe 20 seconds, 30 seconds — I don’t know, a stop-and-go. So, maybe something to talk about for next time.”

He added that he “didn’t want to talk about” the penalties, stating that he was “just happy that the season is over” and that the most important item on his to-do list was to issue that apology to Piastri.

That 10-second time penalty wasn’t the only slap on the wrist Verstappen received for that contact, though. He’s had two penalty points added to his Super License, bringing him up to a total of eight. Twelve penalty points results in one-race ban.

When asked about the accumulation of points, Verstappen cracked another joke.

“Maybe I go to 12 when the baby is born,” he said, referencing this weekend’s announcement that he and girlfriend Kelly Piquet are expecting a child. “Paternity leave.”