Last Sunday’s British Grand Prix will, in all likelihood, be the main topic of heated discussion for the rest of this Formula One (F1) season, following a high-speed collision between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton during the first lap of the race.
This was the tenth round of this season’s scheduled 23 Grand Prix races. After nine rounds, Verstappen, the heir apparent, led the Drivers Championship with 185 points, toasting five victories, including four of the previous five Grands Prix, and only once missing out on a podium finish. In second place, 33 points adrift, was Hamilton, four-time defending champion, who entered this season expecting to break his tie of seven championships with Michael Schumacher.
It has not been the best season for Hamilton despite his three wins in the first four Grands Prix. Uncharacteristically, since then, he has found himself in the wake of Verstappen’s Red Bull car, as the Drivers Championship has rapidly unfolded into a straight duel between the two aces. As Hamilton’s Mercedes Team focuses on developing next year’s F1 car, the Red Bull machines have made the most of a rare opportunity and have secured the lead for this year’s Constructors Title. With the summer break scheduled after the eleventh round in Hungary on 1st August, Hamilton’s quest appears to be slowly slipping out of his grasp.
As 140,000 partisan British racing fans, the largest crowd to attend a single event since the start of the pandemic, packed the stands, the burden of Hamilton compensating for the Three Lions’ shortcoming in the 2020 European Football Championships the previous Sunday hung heavily on the hot summer’s day. This was the moment for the defending champion to make a statement on home turf.
Hamilton roared away, quickly drawing alongside Verstappen, who had captured the pole position in the augural sprint race on Saturday. The gauntlet had been thrown down, and Verstappen artfully closed the door at the first corner, Abbey bend, and the following turns. The duel ensued neck and neck, down the Wellington Straight at more than 200mph, the top two race car drivers forging an intense battle of wills. As the combatants approached the Copse turn, with the Red Bull ahead, neither driver was willing to yield from the challenge. As Verstappen turned into the corner, Hamilton’s left-front wheel touched the right rear wheel of his rival’s car.
The resulting force of the impact sent Verstappen spinning out of control backwards into the barriers with the right rear wheel off the axle. Mercifully, Verstappen, who was not seriously injured, but in much pain from the impact which had been recorded at an extraordinary 51G, managed to haul himself out of the badly mangled machine. The collision had occurred at approximately 190 mph.
Former Formula One Champions, Britons Damion Hill and Jensen Button, commentating on Sky Sports TV immediately accorded Hamilton the blame. With the race halted for 35 minutes while Verstappen was taken to hospital for further checks and the stewards reviewing video of the collision, the battle between Red Bull and Mercedes resumed via the spoken word. Red Bull Principal Christian Horner led the charge accusing Hamilton of dangerous driving on one of the fastest corners on the F1 circuit and endangering Verstappen’s life, with Hamilton countering that he was ahead at the point of contact and that it was his line. During this time, Hamilton’s car was repaired in the pit thus allowing him to resume racing.
The stewards deemed Hamilton responsible for the accident and awarded him a ten-second penalty, which he observed during a pit stop on lap 27 of 52. Resuming in fourth position, Hamilton began the inevitable chase of Charles LeClerc who had pounced on the lead during the incident. With ten laps remaining, Hamilton’s Mercedes team mate, Bottas, in second place at that point in time, apparently let Hamilton pass — later claiming that his tyres were wearing thin -– as per team orders over the radio, a collaboration which certainly cheapens the event for the fans.
Hamilton eventually passed LeClerc on the same Copse turn with less than three laps remaining en route on what, despite his somewhat exuberant celebrations on a record eighth British Grand Prix victory, must surely have rung hollow.
This is not the first occasion in which Hamilton has touched the car of a fellow competitor, as some sectors of the British press want to lead readers to believe. In Barcelona 2016, again on the opening lap, with teammate Nico Rosberg well on the way to the Drivers Championship and seeking his eighth consecutive Formula One race victory, Hamilton attempted to pass Rosberg on the inside. Clearly trailing, already halfway off the track and with nowhere to go, the two cars collided at high speed, eliminating both cars from the event; fortunately no one was injured. More recently, there were the racing incidents with the Red Bull driver Alex Albon in the 2019 Brazil Grand Prix and 2020 Austrian Grand Prix, where on both occasions Albon was clipped by Hamilton and denied podium finishes. Only two weeks ago, four penalty points expired on Hamilton’s Formula One Super Licence, which at the time stood at eight. Two more were added following Sunday’s incident.
Formula One drivers are the cream of the crop of race car drivers, who possess the uncanny skill set and mental capacity to push the envelope to the maximum, once they are strapped into the narrow confines of their cars. The demands placed on their bodies during a Grand Prix are unmatched by any other sporting event. While we slouch on the sofa savouring the high-speed spectacle of a Formula One race, we should not forget the ever-present danger which is always lurking close by.
Bearing down on the Copse turn, should either Verstappen or Hamilton have followed Falstaff’s advice as dispensed in Shakespeare’s King Henry, IV, Part One: “Caution is preferable to rash bravery”? Hamilton now trails Verstappen by eight points, and the gloves are off. ‘Mad Max’, as Verstappen is popularly known, is not expected to back away. On the contrary, he will most likely carry the duel to Hamilton. There are lots more gutsy, elbows out, wheel-to-wheel battles to come this season. The pushing of the envelope for the 2021 Formula One Drivers Championship has commenced.
