Verstappen could not give up and brake and above all, the problem was Raikkonen hitting Verstappen on the first contact. Vettel pushed Verstappen to the left, where there was no room. But still then, Raikkonen slightly moved inward and clipped verstappen's front left with his rear right. Vettel set things in motion by coming too far to the left. The contact between Max' FL and Kimi's RR then obviously catapulted Kimi into Vettel's sidepod, destroying Kimi's car and right suspension, which made him become a skateboard on high velocity, and immediately terminated Vettel's race. Vettel could go on through the corner, Hamilton then missed him marginally.
The real problem then was that kimi carried enough speed and was a projectile that then again slammed into max, and then terminated max' race, and alonso's for that matter.
The only bit of criticism i can find for Max is that he possibly should have been better aware that kimi was in an uncontrollable situation and he should have had his eyes open knowing he could come from the left - Hamilton obviously feared that might happen so he took the corner wide and could avoid it just barely.
Perhaps Max should have hit the brakes, and see kimi skid past and collect Alonso [that was always going to happen unfortunately, though if max had braked, perhaps Alonso would have seen him coming]. He would then have been able to go on in P3, behind Vettel and Hamilton,
then Vettel obviously was done for either way due to the clear amount of green coolant spraying out of every side which caused the slide and then wall contact. It would then have been 1) Hamilton 2) Verstappen.
Had Alonso been missed by Kimi too, then he very well could have ended 3rd even. Ricciardo had a oil problem and Bottas couldn't make an impact there. Mercedes ' 'bad' pace was obscured because of the malfunctioning RedBull of DannyRic.
It was amazing to see Alonso being able to last so long with that wreck of a car. But he had the most amazing start of them all and his Mclaren was capable of something spectacular.
To copy Sky's words' We got robbed from an exciting race.
Though i understand to a point it's a first corner incident, blame still is with Vettel. He had a very poor start, Max' had a better start and he saw it, and then tried to block Verstappen completely, but there was no room there. I understand Vettel could not have seen Raikkonen, so perhaps he thought there was more room, but it's not a 2 - car race anyway and he would have had the inside line in the coming corner which Vettel would have covered anyway.
Verstappen would have had Vettel either way after the first couple of corners, he was just plain faster. If Vettel not moved across as much as he did though, Raikkonen would have had P1, and a lot could have happened from there. But instead, Vettel just made himself too wide, which cost him getting a lead into the WDC this race, potentially terminated the championship [like Hamilton's burning engine last year cost him the title], and thus not only destroyed his own race, but also kimi's, max's and alonso's. that means 4 cars out thanks to 1 hothead.
Either way, there is no way this can be blamed on Verstappen.
And let's be honest here, Kimi ALSO could have driven a bit wider to the left. he damn wel knew Max was there, and he also could have anticipated Vettel would come to the left. Hell, we could have seen Vettel take out Kimi and himself anyway if Max was not collected.
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