Verstappen committed a “tactical foul” in Hamilton F1 clash - Wolff

The pair collided on Lap 26 at Turn 1 after Hamilton came out of the pits following a slightly delayed pit stop.

Hamilton had the outside line, while Verstappen was on the inside into Turn 2.

Verstappen kept his foot in and with there being a limited amount of space, he took to the sausage kerbs and propelled himself onto the top of Hamilton’s Mercedes, ending both of their races.

In football, a tactical foul is when a team loses the ball and to stop a counter-attack, the team deliberately commits a foul with little consequence - a comparison Wolff made after the race.

“Well, the stewards are going to decide who is to blame,” Wolff told Sky Sports. “There is the predominately to blame I guess - we’ve seen that in the past but I would say it was, in football, they call it a ‘tactical foul’. He probably knew that if Lewis stays ahead that is the race win possibly.”

Wolff pointed towards Hamilton backing off when the pair went side-by-side into Turn 4 on the opening lap, suggesting Verstappen should have done the same before they came to blows.

“Doesn’t look like alongside and he went over the sausage kerb in the middle,” Wolff added. “If you compare what Lewis said at Turn 4 on Lap 1 there was no space left and pushed off the track actually. Let the stewards make the judgement.”

Giving his point of view, Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes Hamilton could have given Verstappen more space at the apex of Turn 2.

“First of all, we shouldn’t have been in that position as we had a poor pit stop, Horner said. “Max had the momentum. He had enough space around the outside I think. Lewis gave him enough through the run in Turn 1 and our opinion would be Lewis perhaps closed him too much into Turn 2. You can see he’s got the momentum into Turn 1, Lewis gives him enough space there, Max alongside and then obviously an incident. ”

Horner dismissed any suggestion that Verstappen should have backed out, but conceded that it probably was a racing incident.

“I think he earned enough to be given enough space to work with on the left there,” Horner explained. “You can probably argue it from both sides. I think if you take a middle ground it was a racing incident but I genuinely think that you can argue Max should have bailed a bit more to the left, you can argue that Lewis should have given more space.

“To apportion the blame to one side or the other, I genuinely think in that incident it’s very difficult to do.”