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The 20-year-old Dutchman was handed a 10-second
penalty in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix for colliding with
Ferrari's championship leader Sebastian Vettel, sending both
cars spinning.
"That wasn't possible," former racer Jos told Dutch cable TV
station Ziggo of the rash move. "It was an error of judgment. In
some circumstances Max just has to think more.
"I don't want him to change his driving style. He passed two
people at the start. He did that perfectly. That's what we all
want to see.
"But we don't want to see these kinds of actions. He needs to
have it under control. He needs to think."
Verstappen also lost ground when he tried and failed to pass
Mercedes' world champion Lewis Hamilton, with whom he had
tangled in Bahrain a week earlier.
The Dutchman had to retire from the race after that incident.
Verstappen might have won in China had he been less impatient,
with victory going instead to Australian team mate Daniel
Ricciardo who pulled it off with a series of thrilling
overtakes.
"He messed up, took out the world championship leader and his
team mate won it in an incredible way," commented 2016 world
champion Nico Rosberg on Sky Sports television.
"This is going to be a tough lesson and maybe it’s those kind of
days which are going to make a young driver like Max make that
necessary progress.
"But he’s an incredible driver," the German added. "He just
needs to fine-tune and take a little bit of aggression out. It’s
just too much."
Niki Lauda, the retired triple world champion who is now
non-executive chairman of Hamilton's Mercedes team, said
Verstappen had to change his approach.
When you compete in more races you should get more clever,
especially when you want to win or challenge for the
championship," the Austrian said. "But he is going the other
way. He needs to sort himself out. Nobody can help him."
Verstappen held his hands up on Sunday and accepted blame,
seeking out Vettel to apologize.
Team boss Christian Horner said the winner of three races, now
in his fourth season, had made mistakes but that was only to be
expected.
"I remember when we had Sebastian at a similar stage of his
career, it wasn’t uncommon that he also made some mistakes," the
Briton said.
"I’m fully confident that he’s a phenomenal talent and he’s
smart enough to recognize areas that he needs to work on. I have
no doubt that he will address it."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond)
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