Lewis Hamilton has spilt the beans on the ‘hostility’ he feels from Max Verstappen’s camp after their wheels locked during a fierce tussle at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
In a heart-stopping moment on lap 63 of the nail-biting 70-lap showdown in Budapest, Hamilton and Verstappen were duking it out for third when they collided at Turn One. Chasing down his arch-nemesis, Red Bull ace Verstappen attempted to swoop past the Mercedes maestro but ended up going airborne and off the circuit in what was a harrowing moment.
Despite a quick recovery, Verstappen had to watch Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc snatch P4 from him. Hamilton and Verstappen are no strangers to trading paint with their most notorious smash-up happening at Silverstone in 2021 amidst one of F1’s fiercest championship battles.
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Even though the FIA stewards confirmed no further action will be taken, the current world champion pointed the finger at Hamilton for the recent scrape before the British racing star shared his perspective and pondered over their ongoing rivalry.
“We passed a backmarker, I got to the braking zone and then Max appeared to overtake the car behind me, so I moved over to defend,” Hamilton recounted, reflecting on his third-place finish behind Lando Norris and race winner Oscar Piastri.
“I left enough room in the inside, but Max locked up. He was going on a different trajectory to me. I was going towards the corner and he came shooting across. It felt like a racing incident. It’s easy to make mistakes like that. So I don’t feel there should be any hostility. But of course, from his side, there always will be.”
(Image: Getty Images)
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner concurred that the drivers’ collision was a ‘racing incident’, although Verstappen was less amicable. “I went for a move that was on but in the middle of the braking zone, when I’m committed to the move, he just keeps moving right,” the Dutchman angrily said.
“If I hadn’t turned while braking straight I would have made contact with him. I lock up because he just keeps turning to the right. People made a lot about what happened in Austria [when he clashed with McLaren ace Norris], ‘It was not correct, blah blah blah’.
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“But that was on the initial move and then you just brake straight, but now it’s not an initial move, during the braking zone he keeps turning right. You cannot do that when someone has committed to the inside.
“That’s why I locked up, otherwise we would have collided anyway because he turned in on me. We’ll see. I went for a move that was fully on and I don’t think I braked too late, but we came together.”