“I’m sure we’ll talk when we get to the stewards”– Lewis Hamilton holds Max Verstappen responsible for the Italian Grand Prix collision.
The Italian Grand Prix gave a classic anti-climax with a collision between the two drivers contesting for the world title (Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen) during the start of lap 26.
Vying in the turn 1, Verstappen’s car was airborne after hitting on the tyres of Lewis hamilton’s Mercedes, and in the end, both cars got enough damage while going out of the track into the gravel.
Talking about the incident, Hamilton has justified his position in the collision and puts most of the blame onto Verstappen by claiming the Dutchman should have yielded the position.
“I was racing as hard as I could, finally got past Lando, I was in the lead so they pitted me, pit-stop was obviously slow, lost a couple of seconds,” said Hamilton to Sky F1’s Rachel Brookes.
“Came out, saw that Daniel came past, Max was coming, I made sure I let a car’s width on the outside to him. I went into Turn 1 and I was ahead, I was ahead going into Turn 2, then all of a sudden he was on top of me.”
He knew it
Hamilton then asserts his point that Verstappen knew that he was going on the kerb, and an aggressive move would only have turned fatal, and that’s what happened.
“Absolutely. Exactly the same scenario that happened in Turn 4, where I went around the outside, I was in exactly the same position, but I gave way. And that’s racing,” said Hamilton when asked if Verstappen could have backed down.
“He just didn’t want to give way today, he knew when he was going into Turn 2 what was going to happen, he knew he was going over the kerb but still did it. We’ll speak to the stewards and we’ll see.”
