Verstappen: Vettel apologised for "disappointing" crash

Verstappen had just cleared Vettel in the battle for third place on lap 37 when the German attempted to retake the position down the inside of Vale – only to lock up and hit the defending Verstappen.

The contact resigned the Red Bull driver to an eventual fifth-place finish, with Vettel dropping out of the points due to damage and subsequently picking up a 10-place grid penalty for his role in the incident.

Cameras showed Vettel approach Verstappen right after the race had concluded, with the pair exchanging a handshake.

“I guess he misjudged his braking in there - but I already spoke to him, he apologised to me immediately out of the car, and that's it,” Verstappen said. “It's disappointing but you can't change it now.”

Vettel had questioned Verstappen’s defence on the radio in the immediate aftermath of the collision, but took the blame for the clash when talking to his Ferrari team after finishing the race.

Explaining his view of the crash to the media, Vettel said: “I thought the inside will open up, [but] it didn’t open up. It looked for a second as though he was pulling to the middle of the track, but then he stayed left and then I was too close and couldn’t avoid the crash.”

When asked for his view of the penalty he’d received, Vettel said: “It’s fine, it was my mistake.”

The collision spun Verstappen’s Red Bull around, which led to the RB15 being launched airborne off the sausage kerb on the inside of the corner.

Verstappen, who ended up finishing nine seconds off the podium, said it was “a bit of a surprise” that he hadn’t retired on the spot.

“The power steering more or less failed so it was quite a hard workout for me out there, the seat popped up so it was moving around a lot,” he explained.

“The diffuser was broken, the floor was broken, underneath I could see parts falling off. Was not great.

“The car was not what it should've been, [so I’m] still happy to be fifth.”

Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble