“I have to take him out” – Former F1 champion Damon Hill feels Max Verstappen took a calculated decision to take out Lewis Hamilton with him in the Italian GP at Monza.
The opinion pool has started flooding after the scary collision between championship protagonists Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton at Monza.
Damon Hill, the 1996 World Champion and Sky pundit has had his say, and it’s a rather explosive one. He believes (like most) that Verstappen ‘purposely’ collided with Hamilton, all in order to protect his championship lead.
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The rationale behind this is the two events that preceded the crash – the pitstop by Verstappen, followed by Hamilton. While Red Bull had a disastrous 11 seconds pit stop, Mercedes followed with a slightly slower one of 4 seconds.
This meant, when Hamilton came out onto the track, he found himself right in front of the you-know-who. And Hill believes Verstappen went in hard because he wanted to either overtake him (which looked impractical at the time) or take him out completely, something that eventually happened, with both drivers in the mud.
“I have to say, looking at the rerun of Max on Lewis in Turn 1, there was no way he was going to make that work.
“He had to take evasive action, as Lewis did in the second chicane previously to avoid an accident, so the only conclusion is he might have been thinking ‘I have to take him out’.
“Now I don’t want to think that of any driver, but I think it was either an error of judgement or a calculated move to collide with Lewis.
“Which is strong, strong stuff, and I don’t like the idea that I’m accusing anyone of doing that, but he’s got a points advantage and this was a race which Mercedes was supposed to win.
“It’s all that vibe, and Max has come out still with his Championship lead.”
