Max Verstappen asked a journalist to leave his Thursday media briefing at the Japanese Grand Prix, with the Dutchman still upset over a \u200bquestion asked by the same reporter in December about an incident that potentially \u200ccost him a fifth straight drivers’ title.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not speaking before he’s leaving,\u201d said Verstappen as he sat down to take questions in Red Bull\u2019s hospitality area at the Suzuka circuit ahead of the third \u200brace of the season, asking the journalist to \u201cget out\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we can start,\u201d he \u200badded after the reporter left.<\/p>\n
Verstappen had already clashed with the journalist following \u2060December\u2019s Abu Dhabi season finale after losing the title to McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris by \u200bjust two points.<\/p>\n
The reporter had asked Verstappen if in hindsight he regretted an incident with \u200bMercedes driver George Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix in June for which the Dutchman was given a 10-second penalty that dropped him from fifth to 10th and cost him nine precious points.<\/p>\n
“You \u200bforget all the other stuff that happened in my season. The only thing you \u200bmention is Barcelona. I knew that would come. You’re giving me a stupid grin now,” Verstappen had \u200cresponded \u2060at the time.<\/p>\n
“It’s part of racing at the end. You live and learn. The championship is one of 24 rounds. I’ve also had a lot of early Christmas presents given to me in the second half (of the season), so you can also question that,” \u200bhe had added.<\/p>\n
The rest \u200bof Verstappen\u2019s press \u2060conference proceeded without incident. The 28-year-old cut a relaxed figure as he fielded questions about his recent participation in a sports car \u200brace at Germany\u2019s Nurburgring Nordschleife and an outing in a Japanese Super \u200bGT car \u2060at the Fuji racetrack.<\/p>\n
Verstappen, eighth in the overall standings after a sixth-place finish in Australia and retirement in China, has had a difficult start to the season.
\nFrank, forthright and fiercely \u2060competitive, he \u200bhas been among the strongest critics of the sport\u2019s \u200bnew power unit rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the reality that we are in now,\u201d he said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15939,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-30014","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Verstappen had already clashed with the journalist following \u2060December\u2019s Abu Dhabi season finale.","published_date":"","news_description":"Verstappen had already clashed with the journalist following \u2060December\u2019s Abu Dhabi season finale.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30015,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30014\/revisions\/30015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}