Verstappen going the wrong way, must sort himself out – Lauda

Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda says Max Verstappen “needs to sort himself out” after witnessing another ill-inspired move by the Red Bull driver in Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix.

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In the second half of the race, Verstappen collided with Sebastian Vettel when the Dutchman attempted an optimistic overtaking maneuver on the Ferrari driver while fighting for second place.

The move spun both men around, putting them out of contention for a race win.

The mishap followed Verstappen’s on-track clash with Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain, and has led an unimpressed Lauda to call into question the Red Bull driver’s maturity.

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“It was completely Max’s fault,” said an unimpressed Lauda.

“When you compete in more races you should get more clever – especially when you want to win or challenge for the championship – but he is going the other way.

“He needs to sort himself out. Nobody can help him.”

Vettel was equally frustrated with his rival’s behaviour yesterday, and echoed Lauda’s call for Verstappen to change his approach.

“In that situation he has to change his style otherwise it will happen again,” said the German.

“I said to him afterwards ‘look, the race is long and you threw your podium away’.

“It is not a question of age because he has done so many races now. I gave him room, I wasn’t planning on resisting, but he had a big lock-up and that is when we crashed. We are not happy because we had the car to win.”

Lauda shared Vettels’ view that Verstappen’s young age is no longer an excuse.

“He is not young,” Lauda added.

“He is old in Formula 1 now so he is like everybody else. It is not necessary because it hurts him as well.”

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