Brundle: Hamilton and Verstappen incident "was only a matter of time"

According to Martin Brundle, both drivers knew it would be exciting in the opening lap. "Max Verstappen knew he was the hunted, and Lewis Hamilton understood he was the hunter. Max skilfully went fully around the outside of turn one to hold the lead," the former F1 driver explained at Sky Sports.

Hamilton doesn't hit the brakes anymore

"From the Sprint race we all knew that Verstappen had to lead out of the Becketts complex at turns 10 through 14, where his extra downforce would allow him to pull a gap on Hamilton floundering in his discarded turbulent air with less downforce. He would not get that far". Mercedes also knew this and so Hamilton's task was to get past the Dutchman before that corner combination. "Perhaps certain in his mind that Lewis would yield as he approached a 180mph corner at an acute angle on the dirty side of the track".

Brundle, however, thinks Hamilton has had to acknowledge his superiority to Verstappen too many times this season and, as a result, just kept his nose in it. "I believe he had also decided he had yielded too many times to Max's aggression such as at Imola and Barcelona earlier in the year, and even the day before. He was 33 points behind in the championship and needed to make a stand. Max is super aggressive, and we love him for that, but Lewis decided he was going to counter that aggression. This incident was only a matter of time", Brundle concludes.