Max Verstappen shows an empathetic side in what he told Kimi Antonelli after his race-ending clash with the Mercedes rookie

Max Verstappen showed an empathetic side as he revealed his conversation with Kimi Antonelli after the rookie took him out of the F1 Austrian GP on Sunday, June 29. The Dutch driver had a weekend to forget at Red Bull Ring as his qualifying was compromised by late yellow flags on his flying lap.

In the race, the driver started in P7 and was already in P6 when an out-of-control Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli clattered into the side of his Red Bull and took him out of the race on Lap 1. The incident led to an agitated reaction from Max Verstappen on his team radio. Especially since this meant that whatever chance he had of fighting for a title is now probably gone.

Max Verstappen, being a ruthless competitor throughout his career, would have been expected to have a harsher reaction to the entire sequence of events, but the driver was quite empathetic to Kimi Antonelli when talking to him after getting out of the car and even in the media.

Detailing his conversation with the Italian driver to the media, including PlanetF1, Max Verstappen felt that these things happen sometimes, and it's not something anyone does on purpose. He said:

“I just asked what happened, because he was the only car that was there with me, with his wheel hanging off, so I’m pretty sure that he hit me."

He added:

“Then, of course, I saw the footage once I came back and it happens, you know? I mean, every driver has made a mistake like that. Everyone has made a mistake like that in their careers."

Max Verstappen's verdict on the Austrian GP weekend

Max Verstappen's overall weekend in Spielberg was compromised when the driver's qualifying lap had a yellow flag. In the race, the driver couldn't even make it to the end of the first lap due to the collision with Kimi Antonelli.

Looking back at the weekend, the Dutch driver just chalked it down to bad luck playing a big role, as he said:

"We had a good start, so that was, I think, already a nice improvement from the last two races where I was not particularly happy with it. But in Turn 3, the race was over."

He added:

“Because at that point I didn’t know what happened. We had quite a bit of damage, the car nearly turned off. So I guess unlucky a little bit yesterday in qualifying and unlucky today in the race."

After the F1 Austrian GP, the Dutch driver is now 61 points behind Oscar Piastri in the championship. At the start of the season, Verstappen was aiming to level Michael Schumacher's feat of winning five consecutive championships, but it does appear that for now, he is not in contention to fight for the biggest prize in 2025.