Max Verstappen has asserted that Lewis Hamilton moving under braking resulted in the crash that wrecked his podium chances in Formula 1’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
Verstappen ended up behind Hamilton when Mercedes undercut Red Bull at the pit stop, but he utilised his fresher rubber to be on his rival’s rear in a battle over third.
The Dutchman squandered an opening to complete the pass on Lap 35 when he carried too much momentum into Turn 2 and ran deep, allowing Hamilton back past.
However, Verstappen, who was agitated with Red Bull opting to pit later than its rivals, later launched an ambitious dive down Hamilton’s inside into Turn 1 on Lap 63.
But Verstappen locked up and went airborne as his rear-left wheel clipped Hamilton’s front right, sending him straight on and losing him a position to Charles Leclerc.
Verstappen has declared that Hamilton’s continuous changes of direction under braking led to the incident which the stewards have decided to investigate post-race.
“I got a lot of s*** thrown at me in Austria where people say I’m moving on the braking, blah blah blah,” Verstappen said.
“I’m positioning my car in the initial movement and then I keep it straight. But today, under braking, he just kept turning to the right.
“And that’s why I also locked up because I was of course going for the move but I see the car on the outside just keeps coming at me.
“And otherwise, we would have crashed already before but I had to stop the car and that’s why I had to lock up.”
But Verstappen, who trailed home in fifth as Hamilton completed the podium, is adamant he shouldn’t have been in a position where he needed to pass the Mercedes.
The three-time F1 champion has declared that Red Bull made the wrong calls on the pit wall to drop him behind rival cars on a circuit where overtaking is challenging.
“Yeah tough, I mean, of course, we didn’t have the pace to fight McLaren today, but then I think we could still have had a P3,” he reviewed.
“But yeah, the wrong strategy calls put me on the back foot where constantly had to fight people, try to overtake, but it didn’t work. It was really hot.
“As soon as you get close to cars, the tyres overheat and basically all the advantage you have with the tyres is not working anymore.”
Verstappen insisted earlier in the weekend that Red Bull’s substantial update package had not delivered the step the team needed to be back on terms with McLaren.
“I felt it coming,” he professed. “Today was also quite hot again. When you don’t have a good balance you kind of look after the tyres and that’s it.”
Nevertheless, Verstappen has stated that the overall race execution coming up short was the aspect that made him more disgruntled than Red Bull’s lacklustre pace.
Asked whether it was the strategic calls or the general competitiveness that agitated him more, Verstappen responded: “The strategy today.
“I knew of course it was already going to be a difficult race and beating McLaren would be tough.
“But then you at least need to get a P3 over the line and even that was difficult.
Verstappen got engaged in a tense radio discussion with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase at various points, but he has denied that impacted his driving in the race.
“Of course I’m annoyed, but I’ve been annoyed before,” he explained. “Sometimes you press in the radio to voice your opinion and that’s what I did today.
“I’m hoping that maybe the second pit stop would be a better call. But it wasn’t.
“For me that is not distracting when I’m driving. Of course I’m annoyed, but you also then focus back on what you have to do and that’s of course control the car.”
Pot – kettle.