Jos Verstappen Q&A

Oh dear. Having been the hero of Malaysia a fortnight earlier, Jos Verstappen was the villain in Brazil, thanks to his spectacular collision with Juan Pablo Montoya. In one of the most spectacular leader/backmarker incidents since the Nelson Piquet v Eliseo Salazar knockout punch at Hockenheim 19 years ago, Jos cost Montoya any chance he had of winning his third Grand Prix and a place in the history books. That achievement has been bettered only by 1961 debut winner Giancarlo Baghetti, plus Giuseppe Farina and Juan Fangio, who won the first and second World Championship races ever held in 1950. As with so many recent incidents, Verstappen complained that the guy in front had stopped unexpectedly early, but the FIA stewards decided that he had no real excuse, and fined him US$15,000. Adam Cooper spoke to the Flying Dutchman after the race

"I got the blue flag, so I knew somebody was lapping me. And I saw a Williams car coming, and obviously it was Montoya. On the back straight I went to the left to let him pass, and the moment he was past I went back to my race line. And before I knew it, I was on his rear wing. I feel very sorry for Montoya. But for sure I didn't do it on purpose. Also we looked to our data, and our data tells us a lot. I was 40 metres earlier on the brakes, with about 60kph less speed than the laps before, so obviously he was braking very early - at least earlier than I expected. And that's why I hit him. I nearly climbed over his car, took my left front corner off, I spun and that was it. When I touched him my speed was about 170kph."

"Yeah we did. I saw him and apologised to him. I think it was racing, and we don't want to take each other out, but it just happens. It's very bad of course. But things happen."

"He was still pissed off. I just had a chat with him, and he was OK. But as I said we checked our data. I don't have the paper with me, because our team manager has taken it up to the stewards to show them, but it really shows something strange. Between the lap before and the lap where it happened, it shows a 35 or 40 metre difference. At that moment my speed was already 60kph down on the previous lap. So it's difficult."

"I don't know. But thinking about it, what's happening with the Williams? It happened in Melbourne, it happened again to Ralf in this race, and now it happened to Montoya in the race. Obviously they're really going very quick in a straight line. Maybe they're running very little downforce, and maybe they have to brake early."

"They just wanted my view of what I had seen, and that's what I told them, and that was it really."

"That was a completely different incident. At that moment I was trying to overtake Eddie Irvine, and at the start of it he came completely to the left and pushed me on the grass, and then I spun and had a big crash. You can't compare those things..."