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Former F1 driver: 'Against other drivers, Verstappen would've been more cautious'

Former F1 driver: 'Against other drivers, Verstappen would've been more cautious'

14-09-2021 18:24 Last update: 19:57
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GPblog.com

The incident between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton at Monza has kept the Formula 1 world busy since Sunday. Not everyone is surprised that the two rivals clash again so soon after Silverstone. The gap between the drivers in the championship is only five points.

"Separating the two of them though is almost impossible, with only five points between them in the standings and the order constantly ebbing and flowing.
All of that means the stakes are absolutely massive whenever they race each other wheel to wheel in a Grand Prix,"
 former Formula One driver Jolyon Palmer writes in his column for F1.

According to Palmer, Verstappen was the one taking the most risk at Monza, while Hamilton was at Silverstone. "I believe that against anybody else in that Grand Prix, Max would have been more cautious and probably bolted across the run-off area. It was the do or die nature of the moment, with everything at stake that meant he kept his foot in and attempted an audacious move."

Both drivers were aggressive

"While overall I’d attribute slightly more blame on Max here for his part of aggression – he was never fully alongside and he certainly had the better chance to and avoid it – it’s a marginal enough one, that, like Silverstone, I might have called it a racing incident, where both parties were racing hard and partly to blame for the coming together," Palmer continued. According to him, Hamilton was also aggressive in clamping Max on the brakes.

Palmer's conclusion? "Lewis expected Max to back out rather than risk the collision, and Max expected Lewis to give him more space. In reality, given everything at stake, both of those expectations in the heat of the moment turned out to be naïve."