Windsor disagrees with penalty: 'They can go through that corner'

F1 News

19 July 2021 at 06:56
  • GPblog.com

The big topic after the British Grand Prix is of course the clash between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. According to F1-analyst Peter Windsor Hamilton shouldn't have received a penalty and he explains why.

Titanic battle resembling Senna versus Prost

Both drivers got away well at the start and found themselves driving close together in the first corner combination. "They were racing great. This was Ayrton Senna versus Alain Prost or Nigel Mansell. Max brakes as late as he possibly can, Lewis is there and eventually has to give a bit of room. And I think Lewis would have got a bit angry at that point," said Windsor in his YouTube video.

Windsor doesn't quite agree with Hamilton's findings: "Lewis said that Max is a really aggressive driver. But Lewis, I'm sorry, I'm not being critical here, but you are the ultimate aggressive driver. After where you've come from and where you are now, to be that aggressive and that competitive is just amazing."

The incident at Copse

"They go to Copse and Max goes to the right-thinking 'he's not going to overtake me here anyway'. Max goes to the inside but he leaves a gap. And Lewis of course goes for that gap." Horner was quick to radio in after the incident, saying overtaking at Copse is impossible. Windsor disagrees. "To my eye, it looked like Max thought he had closed the door well enough. And then he just focused on the corner. It might be a mirror thing, that he didn't see that Lewis was actually there."

In the end, Hamilton received a ten-second time penalty, something Windsor disagrees with. "I don't think Lewis should have got a penalty there. We just had this stunning opening lap. The point is that two cars can go into there. Maybe Max should have gone a bit wide then, but they can go through together."