I knew we’d collide. Verstappen comments on collision with Hamilton

Max Verstappen has been eliminated from contention for victory in the Brazilian GP after just seven laps. On the restart after the safety car, he collided with Lewis Hamilton in turn two, who he believes was responsible for the crash.

Last year’s title rivals rarely meet on track without causing some controversy. Even after last year’s race at Interlagos, there was long debate about the aggressive defence of Verstappen, who pushed Hamilton far off the track in an attempt to hold his place.

This year it was the British driver who left little room on the track for his opponent. But according to the FIA’s sports commissioners, the reigning champion was at fault in the situation. The latter, they said, plunged into turn two at too high a speed after a failed overtaking attempt.

Although the commissioners admitted that Hamilton could have left more room on the inside, they determined that Verstappen was the one who made the bigger mistake in the situation. As a result, he was given a five-second penalty.

“It cost him the win, it cost me 5 seconds.”

“It was a good manoeuvre but Lewis had no intention of leaving me any space and I had no intention of backing off. Of course we then collided, I had damage to my front wing. But we were slow today and there wasn’t much we could do about it,” Verstappen said in a post-race interview.

“It cost him (Hamilton, ed.) the race win, for me it was just a loss of five seconds. I don’t think that would have ruined the race for me. After the front wing change, everything seemed fine. We were struggling with too much tyre degradation,” the Dutch driver further assessed the race.

But Verstappen’s race was far from over after the collision. After a great drive, he was back in the points battle. He crossed the line just five tenths behind fifth-placed Fernando Alonso.

But even his final position caused controversy. He should have left his position to Pérez, who is fighting for second place in the Drivers’ Cup. The Mexican said after the race that Verstappen had finally shown who he really is.

Hamilton came away from the race in second place for the fifth time this season. It was also his third consecutive second place finish. In Abu Dhabi, he will have one last shot at maintaining an impressive statistic – a race win in every F1 season he has raced in.

Source