Montoya: 'I would have put Lawson in the barrier' in Verstappen FP2 clash

Juan Pablo Montoya believes he would have been more aggressive than Max Verstappen was in Friday's Mexico City practice collision, saying he would have "put Liam Lawson in the tyre barrier" had he been in the Dutchman's car. Both drivers will carry one-place grid penalties into Sunday's race after the stewards ruled on the second-practice flashpoint.

Why it matters:

The contact ran side by side through the stadium section at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and cost two cars valuable data on a weekend where track time is already squeezed. It also carries an awkward internal dimension, with Lawson briefly standing in at Red Bull earlier this year while Isack Hadjar was injured.

The details:

• Montoya, speaking on F1 TV, said Lawson was entitled to hold his line when Verstappen lunged late: "Liam went deep and used the whole track, then Max said, 'I'm going to cut the track and run over you.'"
• His verdict on the other side of the argument was blunt: "If I'm sitting in Liam's position, I think what Liam did was the right thing. If I'm in Max's position, I would have put him in the tyre barrier."
• James Hinchcliffe took a narrower view, arguing both drivers share the blame while calling Verstappen's escalation "unnecessary".
• The former IndyCar driver expects consequences back at base: "I imagine there's going to be quite a talking to back at Red Bull at the end of all this because I think both drivers play a part here."
• Beyond the penalties, the practical cost was heavy. Verstappen completed the rest of the session with a damaged floor, sacrificing useful set-up work.

Between the lines:

Neither driver escapes scrutiny. Montoya's sympathy for Lawson reflects a paddock view that Verstappen's move crossed a line, but his own answer suggests the aggression threshold in F1 remains a moving target depending on who is delivering it.

What's next:

Both drivers carry a one-place grid drop and a penalty point on their super licences into Sunday. With Red Bull management already facing questions about how its two drivers ended up in the same piece of track, a clean qualifying and a quiet race would be the simplest way to close the matter.