Lewis Hamilton Claims He Couldn’t Have Avoided Contact Against “Pretty Slow” Sergio Perez as $700,000 Equipment Obtains Damage

Sabyasachi Biswas | 30/07/2023
Lewis Hamilton Claims He Couldn't Have Avoided Contact Against "Pretty Slow" Sergio Perez as $700,000 Equipment Obtains Damage

Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri’s Sprint race domination in Spa got comprehensively overshadowed by, Lewis Hamilton’s collision with Sergio Perez. The Mercedes driver received a five-second time penalty for his role in the collision and it sparked a debate on whether he deserved it. Hamilton defended himself in an interview with Sky Sports and claimed that he couldn’t have avoided a “pretty slow” Perez.

During lap six of the 11-lap Sprint race, the Mercedes driver and the Red Bull driver touched while going wheel-to-wheel against one another. Even though the touch seemed light on the cameras, it severely damaged the RB19’s sidepod.

The collision will now cost Red Bull $700,000 to repair a hole in the chassis ahead 0f the main race tomorrow. Furthermore, the incident also left Perez furious as he lost important points because of it. But for Hamilton, it was purely a racing incident.

Hamilton justified his place over the collision with Perez at Spa

Following the conclusion of the Spa-Francorchamps Sprint race, Lewis Hamilton opened up about the incident to the media. There, he insisted that he didn’t want to deliberately make contact with Perez.

According to Sky Sports, the Mercedes driver said, “He was pretty slow and went wide and slow through 14. I got a great exit, I was more than half a car alongside him and we just ended up coming together.”

Following this, he added, “It was a bit of a racing incident really. Naturally it wasn’t intentional but they saw it differently. It was very tricky conditions out there, we were all trying our best.”

In the end, the seven-time world champion wasn’t too unhappy with the outcome. Given he had a five-place grid penalty for causing the collision, he only lost three points after he got demoted to P7 from P4.

Lewis Hamilton set his target for Sunday’s race

Lewis Hamilton will start the Belgian GP race from P3 on Sunday. Even though he qualified in P4, his second row starting position was confirmed after Max Verstappen took his grid penalty for the gearbox change.

Despite starting from P3, he knows that holding Verstappen off will be incredibly difficult. Instead, he wants to finish ahead of Carlos Sainz who starts right behind him, and attack Charles Leclerc, who starts from P1.

As things stand, the W14s have good race pace compared to its competitors. Therefore, Hamilton can look forward to having a great points haul on Sunday to limit the damage caused on Saturday.

Post Edited By: Somin Bhattacharjee
Lewis Hamilton Max Verstappen Sergio Perez

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Sabyasachi Biswas

Sabyasachi Biswas is an F1 journalist at The SportsRush. With over one and a half decades of love for the sport and five years of experience in the field, he dreams to be a regular at the paddock when the lights go out. A Red Bull fan and F1 fan in general over the years, he enjoyed watching Felipe Massa, Sebastian Vettel, and Max Verstappen dominate the track. Apart from F1, he's also a big-time Madridista and Federer fanatic. He was a sub-junior level footballer, won inter-district quizzes and debate competitions back in school. A travel freak throughout, he tries different cuisines and learns new cultures whenever he's away from the keyboard.

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