Hughes takes issue with Horner and Marko about Hamilton: 'That's ridiculous'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Even prior to the weekend in Hungary, there is still talk about the incident between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen crashed at Silverstone at copse after contact with Hamilton and could not continue. Hamilton received a ten-second penalty and later won the race at Silverstone.
Mark Hughes was already critical about the penalty for Hamilton and goes into it some more on Monday morning in an article on The race Monday morning in an article. He mainly looks at Verstappen's driving style and why this would cause such an incident at a certain point. According to him, Horner should play a bigger role in this.
"Verstappen is a fantastic racer and his excesses at the start of his career have now been reduced to the point where he just races hard, but cleanly and honestly. He takes no prisoners, as Horner has said. But that can be challenged. No driver has the divine right to prevail in a 50/50 situation, so it's an approach that has its risks."
"Verstappen's style of racing is perfectly legitimate and admirable," continued the Briton. "But if another driver wants to be deliberately combative in response to an assumption that there is no contradiction, that is also legitimate. Not that Hamilton's action last Sunday can even be called that; it was a hard no-compromise action."
Hamilton was not at fault according to Hughes
For Hamilton to want to make action there, because of the situation of the race and the championship, is not surprising. "Sure, Max would just disappear into the lead if Lewis didn't get in front of Copse, as Horner claims. Certainly, that was a major reason why Hamilton was so desperate to get to the front. Again, that's racing. The fastest driver doesn't get priority because he's the fastest."
As such, he believes the ten-second penalty given to Hamilton was actually over the top, let alone agreeing with what Marko and Horner said afterwards. "The idea of allowing this incident to continue because Hamilton wasn't taking that corner as fast anymore or because he missed the apex is ridiculous. He tried to make an aggressive passing move, the other didn't flinch, they hit each other. Even the 10-second penalty was unjustified, let alone a further penalty."
Anyway: Verstappen and Hamilton will meet again next weekend in Hungary. Verstappen will then want to take sporting revenge and Hamilton will try to catch up with Verstappen again.