Ex-driver on incident: "Hamilton gave Verstappen everything he had"

The crash between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton is the talk of the day and will remain so for a while. On behalf of F1.com Jolyon Palmer also gives his opinion on the, as it calls it, "iconic collision that will determine the season."

Palmer saw that Hamilton was more aggressive at Silverstone than the races before: "At the British Grand Prix we saw an aggression from Verstappen similar to that at the start in Barcelona, but this time trailing by 33 points in the championship, Hamilton couldn't back down when Verstappen stepped up the pressure. Their rivalry had been fierce up until Silverstone but just barely respectable on track, but eventually it boiled over in a fairly predictable way."

The ex-driver argues that Verstappen is normally the more aggressive of the two: "Before Silverstone we had already seen the two go wheel-to-wheel in Imola, Portimao and Barcelona. Both were very aggressive, but overall Verstappen was the more aggressive of the two, especially in Barcelona, when he tricked Hamilton into a risky move at the first corner. In previous races Hamilton had avoided the collision, but this time he gave Verstappen everything he had."

Palmer takes up for his compatriot: "With the incident itself, I can't help but feel it was a race incident. Hamilton was completely on the inside of Verstappen going into the corner and therefore was entitled to some space on the inside. Verstappen turned in knowing he was there and inevitably took a risk of being hit by a Mercedes that couldn't disappear. It was undoubtedly a daring attempt by Hamilton on the inside, one that was incredibly risky, but it was also daring and risky for Verstappen to know the Mercedes was there on his inside and still turn full speed into one of the fastest corners on the calendar."