Max Verstappen had little to say in the immediate aftermath of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as he ignored a question about the opening lap incident between him and Oscar Piastri.

Pole sitter Verstappen was handed a five-second penalty for gaining an advantage off track but despite calling it “f**king lovely” during the race, afterwards he chose not to say anything.

Max Verstappen tight-lipped in Saudi Arabian GP reaction

Asked for his reaction, Verstappen said just 46 words before handing the microphone back to David Coulthard.

“I’m gonna keep it quite short,” he said. “I just want to say big thank you to the fans here in Jeddah. It’s been a great weekend. I love the track and the rest is what it is.

“I’m looking forward to Miami, so we’ll see you there.”

Race winner Piastri was in a more chatty mood and said the Turn 1 incident was enough for the victory.

“It was a pretty, pretty tough race,” the new Championship leader said. “Very, very happy to have obviously won and made the difference at the start. I made my case into Turn 1 and that was enough.

“It was really tricky to follow out there. I couldn’t really stay with Max in the first stint, just chewed up my tyres and then the clear air was nice after the pit stop so a great race.

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“We did the parts we needed to right. Still need a bit more, I think Max is a little bit too close for our liking, but a great race and a great weekend, certainly.”

Charles Leclerc, who rounded out the podium, said he was happy to maximise race pace after an underwhelming quali.

“It’s the way it is for now. Unfortunately, in qualifying, we don’t manage to extract more out of the car,” he said, having scored Ferrari’s first podium of the year. “I was extremely happy with the lap yesterday. I was very, very happy with the race today.

“I think we maximised absolutely everything so I’m very proud of what we’ve done. Now, we just need to improve the car in order to be fighting a bit further ahead.”

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