Max Verstappen rubbed salt into Mercedes’ wounds, saying that he couldn’t care less about their potential appeal.
Verstappen edged out Lewis Hamilton on the final lap of the final race of the season to become world champion on the final day. It is his first world title, and the 24-year-old celebrated into the night.
He will be confirmed as champion at the FIA’s Prize-Giving Gala in Paris on Thursday. Mercedes, meanwhile, have time till Thursday evening to file a protest against him being awarded the championship as a result of what happened on track.
However, Verstappen rubbed salt into Mercedes’ wounds, and downplayed the impact an appeal or its success would have on him.
“Well, I’m fine. I don’t even think about it too much,” he told RacingNews365.com.
“Because I do feel like the World Champion, and it doesn’t matter what they try to do.
“We won it on track, we won it when there was a green flag, green light, and we passed them on track. They will never be able to take that away from me anyway, but also about the possible appeal or whatever, I’m not busy with that.
“As a team, it can be disturbing, but for us, we have been really enjoying the last few days.”
Sit down, be humble
“I think I can be a forgiving person or whatever, but at the moment, it’s still so new from the season that it’s better not to talk about it too much,” he continued.
“But, for example, I saw Toto (Wolff, Mercedes team principal) in Monaco, before Saudi Arabia, I had dinner and he was sitting at the table next to me, and we had a chat.
“He’s flat out for his team and I know that my team also does everything they can, but besides that, I do think you should be accepting a loss. It doesn’t matter how much it hurts.
“I do think there that there is a bit of a difference between the teams,” he concluded.