Now it happened, surprisingly late. In the tenth of a 23-race Formula 1 season, title rivals Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton clashed so hard on the track for the first time that one of them had to watch from the hospital as the other raced to victory after the crash. It is due to the driving excellence of both drivers that this situation did not arise much earlier.
For a racing driver like Verstappen, who with his all-out talent has waited six years for a car that can take him to the world championship title, inaction is the maximum penalty. Verstappen’s situation explains why he discharged his anger on social networks that evening over the fact that Hamilton happily splashed champagne while he was waiting for the final result of his medical examination. However, his judgment that “celebrating like this” was “disrespectful and unsporting” is too harsh. On the one hand, Hamilton asked about Verstappen’s condition immediately after the accident while still sitting in the car. On the other hand, at the time of the awards ceremony, the whole world already knew that Verstappen had luckily got away with a shock.
Nevertheless, it was a crash that will have consequences – not only for the relationship between the two drivers, which has been characterized by trust up to now. The first, darkest, are beyond reason and any argument. Racists used the traffic accident as an excuse to get out of their cave and spread silly effusions on social networks. It was important that these were also condemned by Red Bull, the Verstappens racing team, whose protagonists otherwise did not contribute to the de-escalation on Sunday.
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko reveals that he is not very familiar with the regulations
Both the sharpness and the frequency of the furore, which Red Bulls motorsport consultant Helmut Marko and team boss Christian Horner staged in front of the television cameras immediately after the crash, were completely exaggerated. Yes, Verstappen flew in the “Copse”, one of the fastest places in Formula 1. And yes, Hamilton was more to blame for the collision than Verstappen. But this is exactly what the stewards came to, even without prompts from the Austrian beverage company, and they passed a comprehensible judgment.
If Marko indirectly argues that a pilot should be punished more severely in a fast corner than in a slow one, then he reveals an ignorance of the regulations. This distinction is not made. And if Horner insinuates that Hamilton made a misjudgment out of desperation that was “amateurish”, then he does not only make himself vulnerable in front of the eyes of a seven-time world champion.
It was two years ago that Verstappen had to wait 190 minutes after a victory in Spielberg, which the whole world granted him, to see whether the race stewards would snatch the trophy from him again. Because he had fought it with a tough maneuver against Charles Leclerc. That he was allowed to keep it was not only welcomed by Sebastian Vettel, who said: “We are not fighting for the kindergarten cup.” A timelessly beautiful sentence. It also applies to behavior away from the track.