MONTMELO, Spain — When he was younger, Max Verstappen would bristle at the mention of his old nickname: Mad Max. That old persona reared its ugly head again at the end of the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.

Verstappen’s brilliance in the early part of the race outside Barcelona was overshadowed by what appeared to be a moment of anger in the closing laps, having been asked by his Red Bull team to give a position back to Mercedes’ George Russell. Coming out of Turn 4, the reigning world champion slowed, letting Russell by on the outside, only to speed back up again and drive into the side of his rival’s car.

In Formula 1’s cooldown room, where the top three race finishers react for the first time to the race highlights playing in front of them, the shared feeling was obvious.

“Oh my god,” gasped third-placed Charles Leclerc as the clip of Verstappen’s incident with Russell unfolded. Championship leader and race winner Oscar Piastri simply said, “Yikes.” Runner-up Lando Norris quipped that he had done that before, albeit “on Mario Kart.”

To many in the paddock, it looked intentional, a moment when the red mist had descended on Verstappen and culminated in a snap decision of absurdity. When asked after the race by Sky Sports F1’s Rachel Brookes if it had indeed been intentional, Verstappen gave a flippant and perhaps — given his status as a four-time world champion — disappointing response: “Does it matter?”

Plenty would argue that it does. The man whose car had taken the sideswipe was in no doubt about the Dutchman’s true intentions.

“It felt very deliberate, to be honest,” Russell said on Sunday evening. “It’s a bit of a shame because Max is clearly one of the best drivers in the world, but maneuvers like that are just totally unnecessary and sort of lets him down. It’s a shame for all the young kids looking up, aspiring to be Formula 1 drivers.”

He was one of the only people downplaying what had happened Sunday night. Former world champion Nico Rosberg, speaking as a pundit on Sky Sports F1, was one of the most outspoken, saying Verstappen’s move should have been a slam-dunk disqualification.

“It looked like a very intentional retaliation,” the 2016 champion said. “Wait for the opponent, go ramming into him, just like you felt the other guy rammed into you at Turn 1. That’s something which is extremely unacceptable, and I think the rules would be a black flag, yes. If you wait for your opponent to bang into him, that’s a black flag.”

Verstappen was instead given a 10-second time penalty, which saw him topple down the order to 10th position at the finish, and three penalty points on his super licence. He is now just one point away from a full race ban. It means he has to get through the upcoming races in Canada and Austria cleanly before the number of points on his rolling 12-month period drops again.

Two former world champions’ legacies are blotted by incidents of intentional moves against other drivers. Ayrton Senna won the 1990 world championship by spearing Alain Prost’s Ferrari off the road at the Japanese Grand Prix, and Michael Schumacher won one title in 1994 and lost another in 1997 in collisions with Williams drivers Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve, respectively.

At least Senna and Schumacher could claim their worst moments came when a title was on the line. Verstappen’s came over fourth position.

As has been the case time and time again in his storied career, Verstappen’s race craft will be a major talking point in the buildup to the Canadian Grand Prix. His response to the Sky Sports question and his quip when told about Russell’s comments about his move being a bad example for kids watching F1 — “I’ll bring some tissues next time” — gave insight into how he will treat that focus on his race craft.

Most who have watched F1 recently have been treated to numerous examples of his on-track excellence. His astonishing win in Brazil last year might be one of the finest performances in the sport’s modern era. His pole position lap at Suzuka this season was lauded as one of the best Formula 1 has ever seen. His stunning pass on Piastri for the lead of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix two weeks ago will go down as one of the great all-time passes. Those are all fair bits of praise.

Criticism for the darker part of his race craft is just as fair.

So much of the good work Verstappen has done in recent seasons to bolster his legacy as one of the sport’s greatest talents was tarnished on Sunday in one moment of indiscretion. Of all people, it was Russell — an outspoken critic of Verstappen’s in the past — who best summed up the frustration of watching the brilliant but flawed four-time world champion.

“Max is such an amazing driver and so many people look up to him, it’s just a shame things like that continue to occur,” the Mercedes driver said. “It’s totally unnecessary and it never seems to benefit himself.”

Russell referenced the duality of Verstappen with different examples: his various flashpoints with Norris last year and his stunning move on Piastri for the lead of the race in Imola two weeks ago.

“You see in Austin last year some of the best moves ever, and then you go to Mexico and he lets himself down a bit. You go to Imola, you see one of the best moves you’ll see in a long time, and then this happens. It cost him and his team a lot of points.”

Boiling point

Verstappen’s frustration had been quietly building for a while before his clash with Russell. The FIA’s report explaining his 10-second penalty won’t have been much consolation.

Based on previous incidents this season, Red Bull believed the stewards would order Verstappen to hand the place back to Russell, so the team preemptively requested its lead driver do so. The FIA statement noted that the stewards had no intention of making such a ruling. Red Bull was left perplexed by this on Sunday evening, and there was frustration that Verstappen’s simmering displeasure had boiled over in an entirely avoidable situation.

That FIA admission will rub salt in the wounds for Red Bull, whose call to put Verstappen onto the hard tire at the end left him a sitting duck for Leclerc and Russell — who switched to softs — to attack him at the restart and set in motion the sequence of events that culminated in the costly flashpoint. Verstappen had sworn over the radio when he had seen the tires Red Bull had put on his car at the final stop; because of the three-stop strategy the team had committed to early in the race with the No. 1 car, it was all he had left in his allocation.

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Russell on Verstappen collision: ‘That’s how Max goes racing’

George Russell and Max Verstappen react to the Spanish Grand Prix after colliding late into the race.

Red Bull felt fresh hards were a better option than staying out, inheriting the lead and fighting the charging cars behind with a tire disadvantage. Neither option was ideal in the circumstances, but in the choice between Verstappen defending a lead on slightly older softs versus defending third on new hard tires against rivals on new softs, Red Bull picked the more difficult of the two — especially as there were just six laps of racing following the restart.

“The McLarens would have passed him,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner insisted on Sunday, referring to the prospect of staying out and defending a lead. Probably true, but of all the drivers in Formula 1, Verstappen, famed for his elbows-out approach to wheel-to-wheel racing, would be perhaps the one you would back above all others to hold the lead in that situation. “You’re faced with the choice of a brand-new set versus an eight-lap-old set that have taken a bit of a pounding. With 20-20 hindsight, it’s very easy to say, stay out.”

It’s hard to avoid the feeling the Verstappen controversy was a mess entirely of Red Bull’s own making.

Even before the clash with Russell, there was evidence of Verstappen’s frustration bubbling away. He has never shied away from speaking out about the deficiencies of this year’s Red Bull car. During the Monaco Grand Prix, he quipped over the radio that his clutch felt like it was from the 1972 edition of the race. When Verstappen complained about a similar part of the car on Sunday in Barcelona, race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase referenced that comment again, only for Verstappen to suggest that maybe it was now at least feeling like it was from 1974. A day earlier, he had defended struggling Yuki Tsunoda, telling Dutch media that his Japanese teammate was no “Pannenkoek” (a Dutch slang term for “pancake,” meaning a useless or incompetent person) and suggesting once again that the repeated failure of talented drivers to get the best out of the other Red Bull suggested the team had designed a thoroughly unpleasant car to race with.

And that’s where Verstappen’s deeper frustrations boiling over are fascinating.

Although he has a contract until 2028, there are still those in the paddock who will tell you they are convinced that he will leave the team before then. Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll is reportedly very interested in bringing the four-time world champion to his team. Much has been made of the reported clause in Verstappen’s contract that allows him to leave Red Bull if he is lower than fourth in the drivers’ championship come the August summer break. Given that he left Barcelona with a single point, and with a potential one-race ban to come if he gets into further trouble, that suddenly seems less farfetched than it did ahead of the weekend.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was an interesting observer on Sunday evening. The two men involved in the contentious incident represent a conflicting set of ideas that must have been bouncing around in Wolff’s head for a while.

Despite his stellar form this season, Russell still has not signed a Mercedes contract beyond 2025 — there are conflicting reports and understandings in the paddock about how close the two sides are to agreeing to one. Whatever the truth, it is known that Wolff has harbored a desire to bring Verstappen to his team, and as long as Russell remains unsigned, the option of the Dutchman linking up with Lewis Hamilton’s old team is a plausible one.

Curiously, given Wolff’s tendency to passionately take a clear side when a contentious incident involves one of his drivers, he was on the fence and, perhaps rather tellingly, unwilling to throw Verstappen under the bus.

“I mean, if it was road rage, which I can’t imagine, because it was too obvious, that is not good,” Wolff said on Sunday. “But the thing is I don’t know what he aimed for. Did he want to let George past, and immediately repass? Put the car, George the car ahead, and then like the old DRS games, letting him past at the right way? Or … for me, it’s just incomprehensible [if it was intentional]. But again, I don’t know exactly what the motivations were, and I don’t want to judge on it and say this was road rage. Let’s see what his arguments are. It wasn’t nice.”