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Lewis Hamilton apologises to Max Verstappen after ‘dickhead’ comment

Utkarsh Bhatla
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The Bahrain Grand Prix had everything in it for the average F1 fan. There were mid-race retirement, wheel-to-wheel tussles and even some driver’s room controversy to top it all off.

While the Australian Grand Prix did provide bereft F1 fans of some much awaited racing action, it was Bahrain where things actually started to heat up.

Card could overtake each other and provide fans with visuals that they had waited for all winter.

However, an incident outside of the race track dominated the headlines, as Hamilton was caught calling Verstappen a ‘dickhead’ when he saw the highlights reel flash across the screen in the driver’s room.

Verstappen and Vettel both played down Hamilton’s comments, pointing out how athletes/racers could mutter slangs when high on adrenaline.

Hamilton has now gone onto apologise to Verstappen for his comments. The Brit believes that as a senior driver it was an obligation to clear the air with the young Dutch.

Lewis had also called Verstappen ‘immature’ in his post race comments because Max’s mistakes had cost Red Bull some much needed points in the first two Grand Prix.

I generally do my talking on the track,” said the world champion. “After this incident I didn’t.

“But I just saw Max just now, and I said to him, I think it’s always good to show respect, and regardless of whether I’m the older driver, more importantly being that I’m the older driver, I felt it was important that I went to him.

“So just as we were signing now I just shook his hand and said, ‘I’m sorry about the last race, regardless of whether it was his fault or my fault, it doesn’t really matter, it’s in the past.’

“Hopefully that sign of respect shows a lot, and helps you kind of turn the pace and move forwards racing each other.

“And hopefully keeps respect between you, because I think that’s important between drivers.” Hamilton said.

When asked about Verstappen’s reply, Hamilton said that there was too much noise around the autograph signing section, but he was sure that Max acknowledged him.

“I don’t really know, there was a lot of noise, but he acknowledged me.” Hamilton said.

Hamilton has immense respect for Verstappen for what he has been doing ever since he started racing in the Formula 1 and wouldn’t want to change his racing style one bit.

“I have a lot of respect for Max, and I hope you can see that from the comments I made during testing where I said he’s got great potential to be a champion. As we all know, he’s such a talented driver.

“I was in the same place when I was young, I was a bit older actually, but still, it’s such a learning process with all that pressure being in a top team and you are constantly learning.

“He’s going to have some great races and some bad races, just like as I have, and I will do, and I’m much older than him.” the Brit said.

Talking about his driver’s room reaction, Hamilton confirmed that he would be a little more careful from here on with what he says in the driver’s room.

“I will! I think I’ve been pretty good in all these years, I think that’s the first time I forgot the cameras were kind of there! You’ll have less to write about, for sure.

“I don’t know if that’s worse for the fans. I would say naturally for the media it gives you more fun stuff to write about.” Hamilton said.

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