Max Verstappen and Esteban Ocon have gone and fanned the flames of their hibernating rivalry. The two unwittingly locked horns back in the 2018 Brazilian GP. Now, five years later, the 2023 Las Vegas GP Q1 incident might’ve sparked the rivalry once again as Verstappen confessed his pettiness toward the Frenchman.

As we all saw, Verstappen’s RB19 was almost kissed by the front wing of Ocon’s A523 during Q1, which inspired a surprisingly PG13 rant from the Red Bull man. However, after the qualifying sessions, Verstappen revealed this was a planned attack on the Alpine man.

Max Verstappen reveals his pettiness toward Esteban Ocon’s antics during the Las Vegas GP qualifying session

The Dutchman, as seen on X, revealed to ViaPlay that he was impeded by Esteban Ocon during the qualifying session. So the incident we saw between the two right before the Alpine man started his flying lap was all planned by the Dutchman. He revealed his sadistically devious scheme with a bit of pettiness in the post-qualifying interview.

Verstappen angrily responded, “Yeah look, everyone was creating a gap. Suddenly, he came like a fool drifting between two cars. He was almost in the back of my car in turn 14. So I kept the gap to the others, and he tried f**cking me over in the last turn, to start his lap. I thought, ‘If you f**k me over, I will f**k you over too in turn 1.’ and that, of course, worked.”

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This scheme even worked out as his race engineer confirmed it after the first part of the qualifying. This will surely reignite the rivalry between the two, which has been on the back burner since the 2018 Brazilian GP.

However, if we are to believe the 2019 Verstappen, he is completely over the 2018 incident.

Max Verstappen chalks off the 2018 Brazilian GP Esteban Ocon incident as bad karma

The Dutchman might’ve been fuming after the 2018 Brazilian GP incident. He even shoved and pushed Ocon around in his post-race confrontation. Race wins weren’t coming thick and fast back then for the young Dutchman after all. However, one year on during the 2019 Brazilian GP, the Red Bull man expressed how he had swept the incident under the carpet as bad karma.

“Honestly, I can laugh about it now,” the Dutchman said. “It happened. I think it was karma from my Dad back in the day. Now I’ve got it back.”

Verstappen here was referring to the 2001 Brazilian GP incident where his father infamously took out Juan Pablo Montoya on course for victory. “My dad took out the leader when he got lapped, so it was karma,” added a smiling Verstappen. “It had to happen to me.”

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A very mature way to look at things, even for Mad Max. However, the 2023 Las Vegas GP incident might reignite some feelings of contempt.