F1 News
Hamilton lucky that contact with Verstappen was 'wheel-to-wheel'
- GPblog.com
The long-awaited and predicted clash between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton finally took place last weekend at Silverstone. The two title rivals touched at copse and spun off the track. It was the end of the race for the Dutchman, while Hamilton won the race despite a 10-second penalty and moved up the standings.
During the F1 Cafe on ZiggoSport Giedo van der Garde and others talked about the incident, this time with the new footage that was revealed earlier this week. Van de Garde knows exactly what Verstappen did first when his car came to a stop: check all the body parts.
"That's the first thing you do. You crash, so you start feeling am I ok and is everything still together. If you see the new footage, it is actually pretty quick that he takes off his headrest and his steering wheel. You can see that after that he's struggling immensely to get out of the car."
Hamilton still to blame a week later
The fact that Hamilton hit Verstappen's rear wheel is indisputable. Van der Garde, therefore, thinks it's clear who is to blame here and didn't think it was a good moment to overtake.
"It was a bizarre crash and my opinion is still that Lewis Hamilton was at fault here. Lewis was so lucky that it was wheel on wheel. It's actually almost not a place to overtake. If it's a slower corner where you can outbrake someone ok. But this is basically in the race and small lift and in qualifying full throttle."