Regarding Verstappen's racing style, I read elsewhere that Senna used to do exactly the same. Martin Brundle described how Senna would throw his cars into corners and force the other driver to make a decision - back out or crash. After that, all Senna had to do was put a wheel inside at a corner and he was through. The problem came when Senna came up against Mansell who chose the crash option, repeatedly.
When Senna was breaking through and beating Prost, the British media backed Senna and all we heard about was the nasty tactics and mischief-making of the French driver who became the villain. Against Mansell, the British press did a volte face and switched to "Good old Nigel" against the foreigner.
The narrative for this entire season has been about Lewis good guy, patron saint of little lambs and good causes "Just wanting to race safely" Sir Hamilton OBE Godblessyouguv against the big bad Max foreigner who stood in the way of our hero gaining godliness. I think this has been a quite deliberate campaign on Mercedes' part, putting doubt in the mind of the race director and trying to influence decisions. When Verstappen lunged inside at lap one, he was doing the same as Senna but Masa inexplicably allowed Lewis to keep the place despite cheating to get it. Perhaps the season-long cries of Verstappen the dangerous aggressive driver weighed on his mind. And maybe, the decision at the end was him levelling things up again. Not so outrageous - it's very common to see football referees do this in a game.
