Max Verstappen’s ambitious lunge down the inside of Lewis Hamilton in the closing stages of the 2024 Hungarian GP resulted in contact between the two former rivals. For Verstappen, the move stemmed out of desperation because he had to pass Hamilton to get into the podium places. Instead, his attempt lost him a position and he ended the race in P5.
Thankfully for Hamilton, his race did not get affected and he went on to finish third. But, one of his fans, xQc, was furious. The Canadian YouTuber said,
“Add proximity chat in the f***king cars. I want to hear this guy [Hamilton] talk sh*t to this [Verstappen] f***ing bum. This is a bum move and he deserves to be verbally abused in the comms. You do dumb shit, you get verbally abused.”
Nah XQC just cooked Max Verstappen pic.twitter.com/bL2a82YucY
— Ice Slice (@slicergang2) July 22, 2024
He felt that Verstappen was responsible for the incident, even though the Red Bull driver insisted that Hamilton moved under braking. Verstappen was furious and complained on the team radio, but his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase shut him down, calling his claim “childish“.
Stewards felt it was a racing incident. Verstappen couldn’t brake on time and locked up which is what caused the shunt. But since the Dutchman wasn’t able to stop and turn his car on time, many, including xQc, continued blaming Verstappen.
Hamilton, on the other hand, was calm, collected, and took the incident well.
Hamilton’s display of true sportsmanship
While Verstappen instantly blamed Hamilton, the latter did not complain and continued racing. After the race, he even walked up to the three-time World Champion and shook hands.
Hamilton said,
“I just broke the ice rather than just walk past him. I thought the respectful thing was just uh, I have no problems, I think it was a racing incident. He sent it down the inside, it didn’t work out and we move on.”
With Mercedes’ newfound pace, Hamilton seemed to enjoy himself in Britain three weeks ago, and then Hungary. His energy took a positive turn which is likely why he took his shunt with Verstappen light-heartedly.
