Hamilton's championship lead due to: 'Verstappen's bad luck'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
A month ago it all looked so good for Max Verstappen in the battle for the world title. After Austria, the Dutchman had a comfortable lead of 32 points over title rival Lewis Hamilton. Two race weekends later, the roles have been completely reversed.
Leading position faded
In Great Britain and Hungary Hamilton scored 45 points in total, while Verstappen scored only five. A salient detail is that in both Grands Prix the Dutchman was knocked off track by a Mercedes driver. In Hungary he managed to finish the race, but didn't climb any further than ninth place.
On the BBC Chequered Flag-podcast, Jack Nicholls and Jolyon Palmer discuss the turnaround in the championship. "Verstappen will no doubt be disappointed, but it wasn't such a bad day for him," Nicholls explains. "He may have lost the lead in the World Championship, but if he gets one win he's back in it."
Verstappen is currently eight points behind Hamilton. "I think Red Bull Racing and himself have enough confidence in themselves and the car to feel that things will work out."
Feeling sorry for Verstappen
Palmer agrees with Nicholls and believes it is unjust that Hamilton is now leading the World Championship. "If you look at the first half of the season, Verstappen has had so much bad luck. I really feel sorry for him. The luck has not really been with Verstappen so far. They're hoping at Red Bull that in the second half of the season things will start to fall the way of Verstappen from time to time as well."
Hamilton, on the other hand, seems to have all the luck in the world. "Hamilton has had some particularly lucky moments. Just look at Imola. There he recovered his race with a second place, but could have finished with nothing. At Silverstone it was the same case. Hamilton could have finished with no points either, but won the race." In any case, it promises to be a great second half of the season as "the championship is completely open."