HOCKENHEIM, Germany -- Nico Rosberg believes his overtaking move on Max Verstappen at the German Grand Prix was a racing incident and not worthy of the five-second penalty it incurred.
Rosberg passed Verstappen for second place on lap 30 after diving up the inside of the Red Bull driver at Turn 6. The Mercedes driver went deep into the corner and pushed Verstappen wide at the exit, which the stewards deemed worthy of a penalty for "forcing another car off the track".
Rosberg was given a five-second time penalty, which he served at his final pit stop and dropped him behind the two Red Bulls.
"It was racing, you know?" he said. "I was really ecstatic at the time and that was awesome that I came from miles behind and was very happy to get the position because it meant second place at least. [It was] damage limitation of sorts, and I was surprised to get a penalty for it."
Verstappen moved across on Rosberg under braking and the Mercedes driver said that contributed to him going so deep beyond the apex.
"For sure it made it more difficult, yes," he said. "That was discussed on Friday [at the drivers' briefing] and we were supposed to try to avoid that."
Although the penalty dropped Rosberg out of contention for the podium, his race had initially taken a turn for the worse when he made a poor getaway from pole position and dropped to fourth.
Asked what went wrong, Rosberg said: "There was too much engagement on the clutch and that is a bad start. It got me by surprise and I didn't expect that at all, especially after the formation lap when it felt good."
Rosberg also received two penalty points on his superlicence for the Verstappen incident, bringing his total to four for the 12 month period.