“He just kept on squeezing me”– Max Verstappen blames Lewis Hamilton for not giving him space to even turn the car

“He just kept on squeezing me”– Max Verstappen blames Lewis Hamilton for not giving him enough space in turn 2 of the track.

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton’s collision brought an abrupt end to the pair’s race in Monza, and now both are invested in a new series of war of words.

After Hamilton accusing Verstappen of going too aggressive, the latter said that the Briton didn’t give him enough space while going out of the turn.

“Of course we realised it was going to be close into Turn 1, he cut across really after the white line and I had to go onto the green part to not touch. I went around the outside and of course you realise I was going for it,” said Verstappen.

“He just kept on squeezing me and I wanted to work with him because I wanted to race. Of course people start talking automatically about Silverstone – but these things happen.”

“Of course it was not nice at the time but I think we are all professional enough to just get on with it and keep racing on each other. But then I didn’t expect him to just keep on squeezing, squeezing, squeezing because he didn’t even need to.”

“Even if he had left me, just a car width, we would have raced out of Turn 2 anyway, and I think he probably still would have been in front. He just kept on pushing me wider and wider and at one point there was nowhere to go,” he added.

“He just pushed me onto the sausage kerb. That’s why, at the end of the day, we touched, because the rear tyre bumped up to his tyre.”

Lewis Hamilton has to work together

Then Verstappen added to his staunch explanation that Hamilton has to work together with him to avoid such crashes at corners, which eventually harm both of them.

“You need two people to work together to make a corner and we are fighting for position. Unfortunately we touched.  If one guy is not willing to work, what can you do? It’s not going to happen.”

“It’s very unfortunate what happened today, nobody likes to see that. But I think we are professional enough to step over it and just keep on going. Like I said, it’s very unfortunate.”

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.

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