George Russell said Max Verstappen "let himself down" by appearing to drive deliberately into his Mercedes during the Spanish Grand Prix.
Red Bull's Verstappen received a 10-second penalty for the incident following the collision with the Briton's car.
It dropped the Dutchman from fifth to 10th in the final result, leaving him 49 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri of McLaren, who won the race from team-mate Lando Norris.
Russell said: "Totally unnecessary and sort of lets him down. I don't know what he was thinking.
"It doesn't really make sense to deliberately crash into somebody and risk damaging your own car, risk a penalty.
"In the end, I'm not going to lose sleep over it because I ultimately benefited from those antics."
Verstappen responded that he would "bring some tissues next time", adding: "He has his view, I have my view."
He was reluctant to discuss the incident in detail, but he did say that it was "a misjudgement".
In the incident at Turn Five, stewards decided Verstappen had "significantly reduced (his) speed thereby appearing to allow [Russell] to overtake" but that once Russell was ahead Verstappen "suddenly accelerated and collided with [Russell]".
Russell said: "You cannot deliberately crash into another driver. You know, we're putting our lives on the line. We're fortunate the cars are as safe as they are these days. But we shouldn't take it for granted.
"It's down to the stewards to determine if it's deliberate or not. If they do think it's deliberate, then they need to have a hard precedent.
"Max is such an amazing driver and so many people look up to him. It's a shame that something like that continues to occur."
Verstappen said he had no regrets about his conduct.
"In life you shouldn't regret too many things," he said. "You only live once."
Piastri said: "I need a bit more context on what happened [before commenting], but obviously it was not exactly a small touch. I don't have that much more, but it obviously didn't look great.
