At the Grand Prix of Austria at the weekend, Max Verstappen was cleared by Kimi Antonelli, with which the world champion had to copy the Formula 1 race in Spielberg early. But because there was surprisingly nothing to be felt in the event of anger from anger on the Mercedes rival, a wild theory now shot into the herb.
After the early end in Spielberg only a few curves after the start, the gap from Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing) has massively increased to the two McLaren pilots at the top of the driver’s ranking of Formula 1. Lando Norris to P2 has already rushed by 46 points, leader Oscar Piatri is already 61 points away from the world champion.
But if you believed that Verstappen would therefore rage against Kimi Antonelli, who had cleared him with his Mercedes, was wrong. The Dutch showed mild. Both in the direct handling of the silver arrow youo on the route and later in interviews. But why?
Ex-f1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya commented on “betinglounge.co.uk“A explosive guess that alluded to the swap rumors around Verstappen and Mercedes.
“If you want to interpret something, why was Max so nice to Kimi after the collision? Are you already team -mate?” Asked Montoya. How seriously he said this theory is difficult to say. The fact is: Mercedes opened the world champion openly last year. In 2025, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff also deals openly to have Verstappen in a team. This in turn is intended to deal intensively with a departure.
Verstappen and Antonelli after the crash in Austria
As far as the concrete situation in Spielberg and Verstappens overall, Montoya, meanwhile, added: “If that had decided the championship, Max would have gone up. But I think when it happened, as it happened, he probably said: ‘I would probably have done exactly the same as Kimi’,” said the World Cup in 2002 and 2003 about the scene, in which Antonelli brows very late in this cleared up.
Perhaps Verstappen wasn’t that angry in the end because it weren’t going well in Spielberg anyway. Already in qualifying it was only enough to seven. “I think Max had such a terrible weekend that he was probably glad that it happened,” analyzed the Colombian.