Neither Lewis Hamilton nor Max Verstappen scored points in the Italian Grand Prix. In fact, he crashed out halfway through the race. Verstappen did not expect Hamilton to leave so little space.
"Of course we both realised that it will be close into turn one. Cut across from the white line and then went around the outside. Then he realized I was going for it and he kept squeezing me and I wanted to work with him," Verstappen told Sky Sports. "I wanted to race. Then automatically people start talking about Silverstone and these things happen. It's not nice at the time but we are professional and will keep racing each other."
The Dutchman continued, "I didn't expect him to keep squeezing, squeezing and he didn't even need to. If he left me a cars space. We would have raced out of turn 2 and he would have probably still been ahead. But he just kept pushing me and there was nowhere to go"
When asked about whether he took a risk, Verstappen replied, "You need two people working together, like I said before. If one person doesn't want to work that, then it doesn't work. Then it doesn't happen." Will Max engage with Hamilton: "Of course it's very unfortunate what happened. I don't think anyone likes to see that. We are professional enough to just move on."
Over the onboard radio, Verstappen also immediately spoke words to the same effect.