Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton were involved in a crash on lap 26 of the Italian Grand Prix as both championship contenders continue to have incidents in the 2021 season.
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The 2021 F1 season has seen plenty of incidents involving Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. The two championship contenders had a clash in Imola which was the first in the season. But, there was an even more serious collision in the British Grand Prix in which Verstappen clipped Hamilton and spun off into the tyre barriers. On Sunday, the Italian Grand Prix witnessed a third incident which could go a long way in determining the course of the championship.
Verstappen had been in front but a botched pitstop on lap 24 saw the Red Bull team taking 11.1 seconds. That allowed Hamilton to zoom ahead and take the lead. However, on lap 26, Hamilton pitted and came out on the straight. Verstappen was cannoning down the track and both were side-to-side at the sausage curve. However, Verstappen bounced over the kerbs and went over the Mercedes. The car was parked on top of Hamilton before resting down at the nose.
After the race, Lewis Hamilton criticized the attitude of Verstappen and also thanked an important component of the car for effectively ‘saving his life’.
The halo had not been well-received by F1 as it was introduced in the 2018 season. But, on occasions, it has helped save the lives of many F1 drivers. Romain Grosjean, in the 2020 F1 season, had a horrific crash in Bahrain. It was halo that prevented some of the barriers from hitting his head. But, both Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff credited the halo for saving him after the crash.
“Thank God for the halo. That ultimately saved me. And saved my neck. I don’t think I have ever been hit on the head by a car before. It is quite a shock for me. If you see the image, my head is quite far forward. I have been racing for a long, long time and I am so so grateful I am still here and feel incredibly blessed that someone was watching over me today,” Hamilton said after the race.
Even Wolff acknowledged that it would have been a horrible accident had the halo not been there and it saved Hamilton’s life.
Hamilton later criticised Verstappen for not checking on him after the incident. “I did see Max get out of the car and walk by and I felt that a little bit surprising because when we do have incidents, the first thing we have to ensure is the guy we crash into is OK,” Hamilton said.
The incident saw the race stewards give a three-place grid penalty to Verstappen for the Russian Grand Prix. The stewards stated that Hamilton had the corner but Verstappen was far more at fault in this. Verstappen did not like the decision of the stewards, terming it a racing incident.
Wolff further described the incident before the penalty was handed down to Verstappen. “I think if we don’t manage this in the right way – and I’m sure the stewards will look at it in the right way – it’s going to continue. We’ve had a high-speed crash in Silverstone, we’ve had one car ending up on top of the other on Lewis’ head here. How far can we go? Maybe next we have a high-speed crash and land on each other,” Wolff told the official F1 website.
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