“I’m one hundred percent sure”– Daniel Ricciardo claims if Max Verstappen had known Lewis Hamilton was hurt he would have rushed for help

Tanish Chachra | 19/09/2021
"I'm one hundred percent sure"– Daniel Ricciardo claims if Max Verstappen had known Lewis Hamilton was hurt he would have rushed for help

“I’m one hundred percent sure”– Daniel Ricciardo is confident Max Verstappen would have helped Lewis Hamilton if he had known the latter is hurt.

Max Verstappen was severely criticised for walking away from the crash site without checking on Lewis Hamilton whether he was hurt or not.

But Daniel Ricciardo feels that Verstappen had a hint that Hamilton is fine; that’s why he left; otherwise, he is sure that the Dutchman would have leapt to help.

“I know Max, we were teammates for a few years,” Ricciardo told the Pardon My Take podcast. “That’s him, he is a competitor he’ll leave it on the track and that’s it.”

“I guess he still maybe was carrying a bit of anger or a little bit of frustration from Silverstone. Maybe that’s why he just said ‘stuff this’ and walked away.”

“I saw him go over his head but then stopped a bit more forward. I think where Lewis was trying to reverse and get out, maybe Max saw that and thought, ‘okay Lewis is fine,’ but I don’t know.”

We wouldn’t turn our backs

Ricciardo claims that there is an unsaid understanding between all the drivers, where they would never hesitate to help their contemporary if required.

“If we go through an accident and we know the other driver was injured, I’m one hundred percent sure we would all try to help, we wouldn’t just turn our backs.”

Further, Ricciardo also defended Verstappen for pulling the move over chicane, which resulted in a collision, and have imposed a three grid penalty on him for the Russian GP.

“I don’t think what Max did was stupid, he saw an opportunity and went for it, but it was obviously not the best,” he concluded. While Verstappen and Hamilton had their worst outing in Monza, it was a night to remember for Ricciardo as he bagged his first win with McLaren.

Post Edited By: Tanish Chachra
Daniel Ricciardo Lewis Hamilton Max Verstappen McLaren Mercedes Red Bull

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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