Verstappen boycotts Sky Sports over Hamilton "robbed" claim

Max Verstappen is boycotting Sky Sports F1 and its German and Italian affiliates at the Mexico City Grand Prix, GPFans can confirm.

The Dutchman won his maiden world championship under controversial circumstances when then-FIA race director Michael Masi allowed a last-lap shootout with Lewis Hamilton by calling in the safety car a lap early and only allowing a number of lapped cars to be permitted to overtake, using the 'let them race' principle as his reasoning.

The FIA later acknowledged that "human error" was behind the mistake, removing Masi from his post and implementing a raft of procedural changes and a tidy-up of F1's regulatory wording.

Speaking on his notebook feature in the United States, where Hamilton was overcome by a Verstappen fightback to be denied his first win of the season, Sky Sports reporter Ted Kravitz said: "[Hamilton] doesn't win a race all year, and then finally comes back at a track where he could win the first race all year, battling the same guy who won the race he was robbed in the previous year, and manages to finish ahead of him.

"What a script and a story that would have been. But that's not the way the script turned out today, was it?"

But the terminology used by Kravitz, specifically the term "robbed" is what GPFans understands to be the straw that broke the camel's back for Verstappen.

Kravitz had also quipped in the US that Verstappen was 'unable to win the title normally' after confusion over the points system at the preceding Japanese Grand Prix.

The now two-time world champion has not addressed Sky interviewers from the UK, Italy or Germany in the media pen in Mexico.

GPFans can confirm the boycott will continue on race day, with team principal Christian Horner also refraining from speaking with the broadcaster post-race.

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