The stewards took a dim view of the contact, hitting Verstappen with a 10-second penalty and three penalty points. This dropped him from fourth to 10th in the classification and brought him to within one penalty point of an automatic one-race suspension, which would have a disastrous impact on his title hopes.

Mika Hakkinen, the two-time F1 World Champion and former McLaren driver, says he was “very surprised” that Max Verstappen did not challenge Red Bull’s decision to fit hard tyres at the Spanish Grand Prix.