“It’s great to see Lewis [Hamilton] back being aggressive”– Pablo Montoya defends Mercedes superstar

“It’s great to see Lewis [Hamilton] back being aggressive”– Pablo Montoya doesn’t blame the seven-time world champion for the Silverstone crash.

Last Sunday, Lewis Hamilton was subject to massive public and Red Bull scrutiny for allegedly causing Max Verstappen’s crash at Silverstone.

However, most of the grid and F1 experts have classified it as a racing incident, contradicting all the internet fuss; in the list of people who don’t blame Hamilton, ex-F1 driver Pablo Montoya is also included.

In contrast, Verstappen didn’t give him enough room, and on the other hand, Hamilton missed the apex and turned pretty fast, causing understeer propelling him to go wide.

“For me, personally, I think it was more of a racing incident,” he said on Motorsport TV’s This Week with Will Buxton. “Lewis missed the apex a little bit, I think, more than missing the apex. When he lifted and wanted to turn, he tried to turn pretty fast, and the car understeered and went wide.

“I don’t think Max gave him enough room. Max turned pretty sharp, corrected out and went back in, he tried to give him room for someone that was going to get out of the way and not someone who wanted to stay there.”

“Max is an aggressive guy, and what you normally see is Max attacking and the Mercedes being the quicker car, and this time around, everything is going the other way.

“Everything is backwards now, Max has got the faster car, and Lewis, it’s great to see him back being aggressive, back going at it and taking chances.

Max Verstappen could have given room.

Montoya further feels that Verstappen could have given Hamilton more room without losing his position at the top, but Verstappen was heavily committed.

“Did he try, yes? Was he there? Absolutely. If you look at the camera angle Lewis led them into the corner, he was 100 per cent next to him,” he added.

“You are always going to argue ‘oh but when they touch’, but when they touched Lewis tried to back out of it because Max never did, and I think if Max would have given him a little more room, he would still have come out ahead of him.”

“I think if Lewis would have stayed flat a little longer, I think Max would have had to bail out, and Max was committed, he knew whoever came out of Copse first was going to win that race.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

Read More