2022 São Paulo Grand Prix - Interlagos, Nov 11 - 13

[AR3-GP]

You say he has a history of ruining other drivers' races, but how come there is no record of this beyond interactions with Hamilton? How come he didn't have trouble with Russell, Leclerc, or Sainz all year in so many wheel to wheel battles with them and we were treated to spectacular battles this season with verstappen against the other three in places like Bahrain, Spain, Austria, USA, Imola and the sprint yesterday?

He literally hit Sainz yesterday at T1 on lap 19? That's why Verstappen lost his endplate

Is that all you can come up with? Okay, I can play that game. Hamilton hit Sainz in Zandvoort lap 1.

Okay now what? Is Hamilton a terrible terrible man out to ruin other drivers races on the evidence of 1 point of contact with Sainz?

Both Verstappen and Hamilton have run ins with each other, and they've both hit Sainz once this season. How do we reconcile this?

I hope you can see I'm being facetious but hopefully you get the point.

[MadMax]

I think you are letting your imagination run wild with that interview. It's not the smoking gun you claim it is.

Max wasn't really under any obligation to back out when he's racing for position. It just so happens that if either driver had backed out, there would not have been a collision. The stewards can't tell a driver they have to backout. It's up the driver. All the stewards can do is administer penalties if they feel a driver did something wrong. Whether Max claims he could have backed out or chose not to is tangential because it's the same thing you could ask Hamilton. Hamilton likewise chose not to backout.

It really doesn't matter if you knew there would be a collision if you feel you are entitled to space and stay in the gap anyway. Hamilton likewise must have seen Max's car (or maybe he said he didn't see?).

Max said he knew the gap would close and he went for it anyway. That's a smoking gun if ever there was one. He admitted deliberately putting his car in a position where he knew contact would occur.

You continually attempt to blame Hamilton, and that is your right, but when a person admits to a crime that's fairly good evidence that it's his fault.

Again I don't think you quite get my point.

Do you remember when Stroll drove Vettel into the grass yesterday? If Vettel hadn't moved and let Stroll smash into him and admitted afterwards that he "knew Stroll would just smash into him" and Stroll did exactly that, does that make it somehow not Stroll's fault?

Sometimes drivers want to make a point if they think they are entitled to space.

Your position appears to be one of victim blaming. Hamilton did nothing wrong, Verstappen did.

[mzivtins]

There are things on social media claiming there is knowledge that Perez deliberately span at Monaco, and for some reason RB know this.

If this is true then I agree with max, but for it to be true it means Perez as a person is flawed, abd red bull leadership could put themselves in a position of being involved and would likely have to exit the sport.

Given how ridiculous it would be for these things to be true, I call bullshit.

I don't want to dwell too much on Monaco, but look at this twitter thread. Be sure to click the full conversation.

It certainly makes you go hmmm....there's more to this.

"Perez deliberately crashed in qualifying in Monaco and later admitted it to Helmut Marko and Christian Horner. Max Verstappen has not forgotten that "

This is the part I mean, it's speaking as if it's fact?!

Now, im conflicted, I don't want this to be true because Perez has been elbows out on track but never someone to try actually cheating, so it would be a shame for him ruin his name for this.

On the other hand I do not want to keep disliking max, max as a person I don't dislike just some on track stuff from last year.
I honestly believe for max to be so controversial shows he stands by something he believes in to his core, it would be stupid for him to invite so much hate for no reason, and he is not a stupid person, no driver is.

So for now personally I will just say, I don't know enough to make an opinion, Perez I'd a stand up guy who can be too aggressive on track sometime, and max is a stand up guy who has the balls to stand up against anything, even his own team and we should all respect that no matter how annoying some of his driving has been in the recent past

[AR3-GP]

There are things on social media claiming there is knowledge that Perez deliberately span at Monaco, and for some reason RB know this.

If this is true then I agree with max, but for it to be true it means Perez as a person is flawed, abd red bull leadership could put themselves in a position of being involved and would likely have to exit the sport.

Given how ridiculous it would be for these things to be true, I call bullshit.

I don't want to dwell too much on Monaco, but look at this twitter thread. Be sure to click the full conversation.

It certainly makes you go hmmm....there's more to this.

"Perez deliberately crashed in qualifying in Monaco and later admitted it to Helmut Marko and Christian Horner. Max Verstappen has not forgotten that "

This is the part I mean, it's speaking as if it's fact?!

Now, im conflicted, I don't want this to be true because Perez has been elbows out on track but never someone to try actually cheating, so it would be a shame for him ruin his name for this.

On the other hand I do not want to keep disliking max, max as a person I don't dislike just some on track stuff from last year.
I honestly believe for max to be so controversial shows he stands by something he believes in to his core, it would be stupid for him to invite so much hate for no reason, and he is not a stupid person, no driver is.

So for now personally I will just say, I don't know enough to make an opinion, Perez I'd a stand up guy who can be too aggressive on track sometime, and max is a stand up guy who has the balls to stand up against anything, even his own team and we should all respect that no matter how annoying some of his driving has been in the recent past

Someone made a separate thread on the subject so anything else on the subject can just go here: viewtopic.php?t=30766

[mzivtins]

I don't want to dwell too much on Monaco, but look at this twitter thread. Be sure to click the full conversation.

It certainly makes you go hmmm....there's more to this.

"Perez deliberately crashed in qualifying in Monaco and later admitted it to Helmut Marko and Christian Horner. Max Verstappen has not forgotten that "

This is the part I mean, it's speaking as if it's fact?!

Now, im conflicted, I don't want this to be true because Perez has been elbows out on track but never someone to try actually cheating, so it would be a shame for him ruin his name for this.

On the other hand I do not want to keep disliking max, max as a person I don't dislike just some on track stuff from last year.
I honestly believe for max to be so controversial shows he stands by something he believes in to his core, it would be stupid for him to invite so much hate for no reason, and he is not a stupid person, no driver is.

So for now personally I will just say, I don't know enough to make an opinion, Perez I'd a stand up guy who can be too aggressive on track sometime, and max is a stand up guy who has the balls to stand up against anything, even his own team and we should all respect that no matter how annoying some of his driving has been in the recent past

Someone made a separate thread on the subject so anything else on the subject can just go here: viewtopic.php?t=30766

Cheers bro!

[Edax]

The car wasn't alongside him. It came steaming in.

Look, Max admitted in an interview to deliberately driving in to the contact. There is no argument on whose shoulders the blame sits for this one.

I think you are letting your imagination run wild with that interview. It's not the smoking gun you claim it is.

Max wasn't really under any obligation to back out when he's racing for position. It just so happens that if either driver had backed out, there would not have been a collision. The stewards can't tell a driver they have to backout. It's up the driver. All the stewards can do is administer penalties if they feel a driver did something wrong. Whether Max claims he could have backed out or chose not to is tangential because it's the same thing you could ask Hamilton. Hamilton likewise chose not to backout.

It really doesn't matter if you knew there would be a collision if you feel you are entitled to space and stay in the gap anyway. Hamilton likewise must have seen Max's car (or maybe he said he didn't see?).

Max said he knew the gap would close and he went for it anyway. That's a smoking gun if ever there was one. He admitted deliberately putting his car in a position where he knew contact would occur.

You continually attempt to blame Hamilton, and that is your right, but when a person admits to a crime that's fairly good evidence that it's his fault.

So this is the quote.

“ To be honest, I went around the outside, and I immediately felt he was not going to leave space. I just went for it, he didn’t leave me space, so I knew we were going to get together. It cost him the race win, for me it gave me five seconds. It wouldn’t have mattered anything for my race, because we were just way too slow. But it’s just a shame, I thought we could race quite well together, but clearly the intention was not there to race.”

Whatever your opinion on the incident is, this in no shape or form says “I crashed into Hamilton on purpose”.

So let’s not cut and edit this quote so that it does.

[wesley123]

So this is the quote.

“ To be honest, I went around the outside, and I immediately felt he was not going to leave space. I just went for it, he didn’t leave me space, so I knew we were going to get together. It cost him the race win, for me it gave me five seconds. It wouldn’t have mattered anything for my race, because we were just way too slow. But it’s just a shame, I thought we could race quite well together, but clearly the intention was not there to race.”

Whatever your opinion on the incident is, this in no shape or form says “I crashed into Hamilton on purpose”.

So let’s not cut and edit this quote so that it does.

"and I immediately felt he was not going to leave space."

Here he says he was aware of what was going to happen.

"I just went for it"

And here he says he went for it. He attempted the overtake even though he knew it wasn't going to be possible. I don't see how you could call it anything other than intentional.

[jz11]

So this is the quote.

“ To be honest, I went around the outside, and I immediately felt he was not going to leave space. I just went for it, he didn’t leave me space, so I knew we were going to get together. It cost him the race win, for me it gave me five seconds. It wouldn’t have mattered anything for my race, because we were just way too slow. But it’s just a shame, I thought we could race quite well together, but clearly the intention was not there to race.”

Whatever your opinion on the incident is, this in no shape or form says “I crashed into Hamilton on purpose”.

So let’s not cut and edit this quote so that it does.

"and I immediately felt he was not going to leave space."

Here he says he was aware of what was going to happen.

"I just went for it"

And here he says he went for it. He attempted the overtake even though he knew it wasn't going to be possible. I don't see how you could call it anything other than intentional.

it is in the eye of the beholder

I don't really care much or trust stewards decisions, especially since they gave that last penalty to Alonso, I think there is some politics being at play that we're not aware of

in this case - Hamilton being the 7x WDC and knowing full well how Max is, decided deliberately to shut the door and leave no space at all, Max wasn't backing out either and BOTH of these things together led to the crash, the thing is, Max even said so, they didn't have the car to win this weekend, so Hamilton, even if he couldn't have remained in front through the following lefthander, could have easily fought back and pass Max just like he did Perez, there would be no drama, no controversy, just racing

had he given Max the space on the inside, and kept it clean on his line, he would have had plenty of speed at the exit of the following left to keep Max behind, since Maxes line in the T2 was so compromised

and had he given the room to Max and Max still ran into him, then it would be slam dunk divebomb, torpedo, young-mad-max typical nonsense move of the past, but won't know now that now

IMHO it was typical race start racing incident, and no penalty should have been given out, especially since both involved lost out appropriately

that is how I read that Max comment, and not in the way - yeah, I ran into him on purpose

edit: misquoted

[Edax]

So this is the quote.

“ To be honest, I went around the outside, and I immediately felt he was not going to leave space. I just went for it, he didn’t leave me space, so I knew we were going to get together. It cost him the race win, for me it gave me five seconds. It wouldn’t have mattered anything for my race, because we were just way too slow. But it’s just a shame, I thought we could race quite well together, but clearly the intention was not there to race.”

Whatever your opinion on the incident is, this in no shape or form says “I crashed into Hamilton on purpose”.

So let’s not cut and edit this quote so that it does.

"and I immediately felt he was not going to leave space."

Here he says he was aware of what was going to happen.

"I just went for it"

And here he says he went for it. He attempted the overtake even though he knew it wasn't going to be possible. I don't see how you could call it anything other than intentional.

I sincerely hope you don’t work in a courthouse.

This is exactly what I mean. The quote says: I went for the overtake, had a bad feeling, but went for it anyway, shame, blame Hamilton”

Don’t cut it an dissect it till it says “I crashed ino him on purpose”

[mrluke]

Why would the car in front back off? When has that been the rule?

Hamilton was a cars width from the apex and max still didn't make the corner even after hitting ham.

It's a standard max line, cut from a super early apex to straight off the track and let the other guy get out the way.

Difference was ham didn't have a wdc lead to protect this time.

[McL-H]

“He didn’t leave me space so I knew we were going to get together. It cost him the race win, for me it gave me five seconds.”

In other words: “I know what I want and if I can’t have it no one will.”

Unbelievable this guy.

[chrisc90]

Why would the car in front back off? When has that been the rule?

Hamilton was a cars width from the apex and max still didn't make the corner even after hitting ham.

It's a standard max line, cut from a super early apex to straight off the track and let the other guy get out the way.

Difference was ham didn't have a wdc lead to protect this time.

Care to share this cars width from the apex?

[the poster below]

in this case - Hamilton being the 7x WDC and knowing full well how Max is, decided deliberately to shut the door and leave no space at all, Max wasn't backing out either and BOTH of these things together led to the crash, the thing is, Max even said so, they didn't have the car to win this weekend, so Hamilton, even if he couldn't have remained in front through the following lefthander, could have easily fought back and pass Max just like he did Perez, there would be no drama, no controversy, just racing

had he given Max the space on the inside, and kept it clean on his line, he would have had plenty of speed at the exit of the following left to keep Max behind, since Maxes line in the T2 was so compromised

and had he given the room to Max and Max still ran into him, then it would be slam dunk divebomb, torpedo, young-mad-max typical nonsense move of the past, but won't know now that now

IMHO it was typical race start racing incident, and no penalty should have been given out, especially since both involved lost out appropriately

that is how I read that Max comment, and not in the way - yeah, I ran into him on purpose

edit: misquoted

I get the impression that Hamilton often positions his car in a way that leaves enough room for a sub optimal line for the following car, but that in this case Verstappen made a choice to go into the "disappearing wedge" possibly in the expectation that Hamilton would shift to avoid contact as he has often in the past with Verstappen.

I don't think Hamilton would have been guaranteed to keep him behind on the run to T4, with the strong likelihood of harsh defending from Verstappen if he had got in front of Hamilton.

On balance, I see it as Hamilton "choosing the battleground" as that corner rather than having to deal with Verstappen racing to the death in each and every corner that Hamilton might later have a run on him to pass back. That's why I think the "live to fight another day" mentality Hamilton often talked about before wasn't applied this time.

All IMHO of course. Could easily just be a racing incident / mistakes by one/both that can be over-analysed (which I may be doing). It's just that based on the events last year and the few instances this year where the Merc has been somewhat competitive against the Red Bull, it seems likely that things will continue to end in tears. Vendettas are nice for the storyline though, I guess?

[AMG.Tzan]

People still arguing if Hamilton had any fault in the incident!

Stewards are there for a reason and have a lot more data than us! If the stewards saw that Verstapen was predominantly at fault then that was it and it’s the end of the argument!

No need to bring up stories of Silverstone 2021 and the penalty there! Hamilton was predominantly at fault there but what most of the Hamilton fans are trying to point about that accident is that Silverstone 2021 was the only time Hamilton was on the inside of Verstapen and he didn’t yield! All year long he had been doing the same thing over and over again just to avoid getting DNFed by Verstapen!

Anyway, what I saw today was the old spoiled Verstapen from pre 2019! For some reason (probably a slow car for the first time all year) the guy was in ego mode and didn’t care one bit! As I said since the start of the year Verstapen is racing Hamilton quite more aggressively than any other driver out there! I don’t know if it’s a personal thing between the two but still he never raced Leclerc that hard at the start of the year…

Listening to people saying “Alonso was right” just makes me giggle! Probably these people haven’t been watching Formula 1 long enough to remember Hamilton battling all the time in inferior cars (2009-2013)! Go watch these battles first against greats such as Button, Alonso, Schumacher, Vettel and Raikonen and then you’ll find out if Alonso is right! Since his 2007 defeat he has been spitting flame whenever he has the opportunity to…he simply can’t accept defeat and he expressed pretty much the same feelings towards Vettel all those years because their fights during 2010-2013! He

Hamilton’s racecraft has been unrivaled these last few years! Verstapen just pushed the boundaries last year and just got away with it most of the time because of Hamilton’s great awareness and racecraft in being able to avoid contacts and live to fight another day! First lap at Spa was one the very rare mistakes Lewis made and he instantly accepted blame and apologized (although it was Lap 1 and clearly Alonso was in his blind spot)

Haven’t seen Alonso apologize for hitting drivers from behind these last few races cause he tries getting out of the slipstream way too late! Even the Stroll incident at Austin could have been avoided had he just not left it so late to get out of his slipstream…

Try watching old races (2007-2013) and try finding better excuses and arguments next time you’re itching to blame Hamilton unreasonably and devalue his racecraft and achievements…

[Poleman]

Wonder what Hamilton makes of his comments from 2018...

Except Hamilton wasn't lapped and trying to unlap himself