Lewis Hamilton slammed his former rival Nico Rosberg who claimed that Max Verstappen is a better driver back in 2019.
Lewis Hamilton lost the 2021 championship to Max Verstappen as a result of the controversial end to the Abu Dhabi GP. Both the title contenders entered the final race of the season level on points.
However, following an unfortunate set of events, Verstappen comfortably passed through his rival in the final lap and claimed his maiden title.
Since then, the controversial race of the Abu Dhabi GP has been criticised. Many have even called for the resignation of the race director Michael Masi as his decision had a direct impact on the race.
Recently, Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz said, “Losing the title on the last lap like that, it’s just hard to accept. I respect him more than before for the way he managed to do it. We had a few words on the podium, he was really struggling [to comprehend the situation].”
In 2019, Nico Rosberg claimed that Verstappen was a better driver in his youtube channel. He said, “If they were to drive the same car, I think Verstappen would be in front of Hamilton in the championship right now. Although this weekend’s lower score [of Hamilton] also has to do with that.”
“Verstappen is simply the best, at the moment, driver in Formula 1. It is very impressive what he shows, the Netherlands is going crazy, they are still celebrating in the stands. It is beautiful to see and that is what we simply want.”
Lewis Hamilton does not pay heed to Nico Rosberg
The seven-time world champion and Rosberg used to be huge rivals back when the latter used to race together in Mercedes. Their rivalry produced several dramatic moments for the F1 community.
Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg pre-race Abu Dhabi 2016
The thing that always gets me about this video is that after everything that happened lewis was all smily talking about their childhood and nico just wanted to d!e cuz he knew it was the last time they would ever talk pic.twitter.com/1wGLfYGgpQ— | check pinned (@roscoedelrey) January 2, 2022
During the Malaysian GP in 2013, Rosberg was not happy when the team asked him to stay behind his teammate[Hamilton].
In the Bahrain GP in 2014, both the drivers went head to head and it was later revealed that the German did not abide by team orders to stay behind the Briton.
When Hamilton was asked about Rosberg’s comment on his youtube channel, the former said, “I’ve never seen the blog. It has no influence on my life.”
“Whether he’s right or wrong doesn’t interest me, although he has the right to his opinion. But I think my records and results basically speak for themselves. There are always people who did not have the success that I did who want to talk, but that’s ok.”
“I once read a book and it said when people talk bad about you, don’t take it personally because they’re actually talking about themselves.”
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