Formula 1 race director Charlie Whiting believes Max Verstappen’s comment♛s about Valtteri Bottas cutting the final chicane in the Japanese Grand Prix were “silly”.

The Mercedes driver skipped across the artificial grass after locking-up into the chicane in the closing stages of the race while under pressure from Verstappen - who had ea🐷rlier received a five-second time penalty for forcing Kimi Raikkonen off track following a wide moment at the same corner.

Bottas re-joined ahead of the Red Bull drive🥂r and went on to finish second, prompting Verstappen to tell Sky Sports F1: “If I get a five-se🌜cond penalty for that [Raikkonen incident] then next time I’ll just cut the track and do it like Valtteri”.

When asked about Verstappen’s 🐼remark in his post-race session, Whiting, who confirmed the incident was not looked at, replied: “That’s a rather silly thing to say.

“It was quite clear that Valtteri locked up, made a mistake. We looked at the mini sector time, and he l🎐ost half a second, he dropped half a second to Max.

“He wasn’t being threatened, it’s not 🔯that he cut the corner and stayed in front 𝓀by virtue of cutting the chicane. It was just a mistake.”

The Suzuka race stewards judged the Dutchman had returned to the track in an unsafe manner in his incident with Raikkonen, which Whiting described as a 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:“clear” penalty.

“You’re required to rejoin safely and Kimi was there and he pushed him off the track. I think that was a fairly♎ straightforwa✨rd one for the stewards,” he added.

“I think having cut the chicane, he would have struggled t🎐o stay in front.

“If he had ဣstayed in front, we may have had to look at asking him to give the pla📖ce, as otherwise he would have conceded that pace.”