Verstappen reacts to overtaking and track limits: 'We were robbed'

The titanic battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in 2021 got off to a flying start today. Verstappen's wide racing line in turn 4 cost him the race win, and in post-race interviews, both drivers explained the incident.

"From my side, I don't know why that was, in the beginning, why they were running wide initially because in qualifying we’re not allowed to do that. Of course, I was outside of track limits when I passed Lewis, so they told me to give the position back. It is what it is, it gave the position back and then I tried again but I didn't have the tyres anymore. I did have newer tyres but as soon as you get within 1.5 seconds they degrade very quickly, so it’s super hard to follow with these cars," Verstappen said in the F1 post-race show on Youtube. 

"It's still a positive start to the season, and still a long season ahead. I see it as only seven points robbed and we’ll try to do better next time," he said. 

Hamilton looks at it differently

Hamilton also shared his perspective on the matter in an interview during the post-race show. He highlights the difficulty he had in keeping Verstappen at bay. "I was struggling, obviously. We stopped so early, quite shorter than our initial strategy. Even with our original strategy, it was already going to be difficult to keep him behind, but he went so much longer and had much fresher tyres.”

The Brit continued: "We knew from this weekend and from testing that we were going to be on the back foot. When he was chasing me I knew he was catching me massively. In my mind I was thinking: if I can just hold on to these tyres, make no mistakes, then maybe I can just keep him at an arm's length, out of my DRS."