The F1 expert defended Verstappen after his collision with George Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix, and analysed Hamilton's recent performances with Ferrari.
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What have you made of Lewis Hamilton’s body language and general performances this season?
I think it’s interesting that we’re having this conversation about Lewis, when he has already won something while he’s been at Ferrari, albeit a sprint race. Everyone can see that this Ferrari car is not a championship contender. It is sometimes the third best car on track, sometimes the fourth best car on track, if Red Bull had a teammate for Max who was able to keep that car at the front then Ferrari would be even further back.
Red Bull have an issue with frankly anyone who drives the second car because of some of the inherent difficulties with the way the car behaves. The thing is with Lewis, my read of the situation is that people shouldn’t be too quick to jump to a conclusion just because of him being downbeat about the car’s performance, about the fact that he has to now endure Grand Prix, where he knows he cannot win. In fact, he knows he cannot even really consistently compete for podium finishes.
This is essentially new territory for Lewis in recent years. Mercedes Benz took a wrong turn with their car development from 2022 onwards. He’s had a very difficult time there. Lewis has then gone to Ferrari and of course, Lewis just races to win, he’s not there to finish fifth for sixth or eighth or whatever. One of the interesting aspects of working in Formula One for a long time, which, I’ve been very privileged to do, is you get to see how world champions, like Lewis behave when they find themselves in a car that’s not competitive.
Max Verstappen admitted he was wrong to collide with George Russell, what were your thoughts on the incident?
I think, as we all know, even the best drivers in the world can sometimes become frustrated and maybe do things that they could regret or should regret. When you think of the late, great Ayrton Senna and some of his intentional collisions, which sort of marred his reputation slightly, notably with Alain Prost in Zuka in 1990.
Also, Michael Schumacher, certainly there were two or three occasions when we all feel Michael overstepped the mark, and his former team balls Ross Brawn has said that was something Michael came to regret.
I think with Max, what we’ve seen is a regretful moment. He was frustrated, first of all, being overtaken by Charles Leclerc at the restart, and of course, as we now have seen, Charles did move across on Max and probably should have been penalised for that, but Max was frustrated to lose out at the restart and then to be instructed to let George Russell past didn’t go down well. We know that Max and George have a little bit of history to put it mildly.
I think everything escalated in a moment, and you get that outcome. What’s interesting is that Max, Dr. Marco and Christian Horner have all essentially said the same thing, which is that it was the wrong thing to do, it was a negative outcome for the team as well, and of course, it not only lost what was looking like a certain podium, but he then got demoted to 10th, and that’s really bad in terms of his driver’s championship hopes.
