F▨ormula 1 race director Charlie Whiting believes Max Verstappen’s comments about Valtteri Bottas cutting the final chicane in the Japanese Grand Prix were “silly”.

The Mercedes driver skipped a💝cross the artificial grass after locking-up into the chicane in the closing stages of the race while under pressure from Verstappen - who ha🐽d earlier 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 driver and went on to finish second, prompting Verstappen to tell Sky Sports F1: “If I get a five-secജond 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 upꦺ, made a mistake. We looked at the mini sector time, and he lost half a se𒉰cond, he dropped half a second to Max.

“He wasn’t being threatened, it’s💖 not that he cut the corner and stayed in f🔜ront by 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5最新开奖结果:“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 straigh♛tforward one for the stewards,” he added.

“I think having cut the chicane, he would have struggled to s🦄tay in front.

“𝕴If he had stayed in front, we may have had to look at asking him t𓆏o give the place, as otherwise he would have conceded that pace.”