F1 News
'Verstappen and Hamilton both guilty of this horrendous mess up'
- GPblog.com
The head-to-head collision between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton was a terrifying moment in the second-to-last race of the season. How could it have happened and what could the consequences have been? Marc Priestley is firm and says both were guilty.
Chaos in Jeddah
Verstappen had to let his title rival go by after an illegal overtake in the Saudi Arabia race. Verstappen knew he would do so on the straight, but Hamilton had no idea, as it turned out. The result was a somewhat strange skirmish back and forth at low speed, with Hamilton driving his right front tyre into Verstappen's left rear tyre.
Former F1 engineer at McLaren Marc Priestley discusses the race in a live video at YouTube and thinks the drivers were both to blame for the situation that arose. Priestley doesn't think Verstappen was swerving across the track. That would be even more dangerous than just driving slowly. The Briton understands Verstappen was mainly busy looking in his mirrors when Hamilton would pass him.
Horrible mess between Verstappen and Hamilton
Priestley highlights the fact that Verstappen would immediately hook up with Hamilton again when the Mercedes driver overtakes him and therefore needed to have the perfect reaction time. It would make no sense for the Red Bull driver to get in Hamilton's way if he wanted to pass him as quickly as possible. The analyst also doesn't believe Hamilton was trying to cause a collision and push Verstappen out of the race: "It was clearly an horrendous mess up on both sides, and it seemed much more dubious than it probably was."