Verstappen doesn’t want “bitch fight” with Leclerc over Sakhir F1 GP incident

Max Verstappen says he wants to move on from the incident with Charles Leclerc after the pair exchanged words in the media following their opening lap incident in the Sakhir F1 Grand Prix.

Verstappen's race in Sakhir ended prematurely as he was forced to take evasive action on Lap 1 after Leclerc crashed into Sergio Perez into Turn 4.

After the race in Bahrain, Verstappen labelled the move by Leclerc as “reckless”, while the Ferrari driver criticised the Dutchman for making “silly comments” in the media.

Ahead of this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Verstappen was asked whether he’d be prepared to speak to Leclerc in a bid to clear the air - a suggestion he dismissed completely.

"I am not interested at all," Verstappen said. "I just want to do the race here and go home. It’s what it is. There’s no point trying to have a bitch fight, keep going on, poking each other, it doesn’t matter. We both retired and that’s what it is."

Going into this weekend’s season finale, Verstappen still has an outside shot of finishing as runner-up behind Lewis Hamilton as he trails Valtteri Bottas by 16 points.

Reflecting on the season as a whole, Verstappen feels he has made a step forward compared to 2019.

"Looking at my own performances, I think I can be happy with that," Verstappen added. "I think I improved again compared to the year before, which is what you want, you want to become better. I had a few good results, nice podiums.

"Of course, at the beginning of the year, we wanted to fight for the championship which didn’t happen but then quite quickly we accepted that in a way of trying to understand the car, why it wasn’t performing like we wanted to do and we tried to improve it, which I think we did. We had a few retirements as well and still of course, Mercedes was the dominant team but I think in general we still had a good season and had fun."