Lewis Hamilton not to blame for Monaco collision, says Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen

Hamilton not to blame for Monaco collision, says Verstappen

Was anyone?

Martin Macdonald

Tuesday 28 May 2019 16:53

Max Verstappen believes that neither Lewis Hamilton or himself was to blame for their collision during the latter stages of the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday, as the pair connected during an attempted overtake from the Dutchman at Turn 10.

With Hamilton leading the entire race, Verstappen was forced to make a late surge to try and claim P1, not only for the race win but because he would receive a five-second penalty after the GP due to a previous collision with Valtteri Bottas in the pitlane.

At Turn 10, he went for it, but Hamilton defended well which resulted in the Red Bull and Mercedes touching, with both drivers subsequently handling the slight connection with ease.

The Dutchman doesn’t think either party was at fault.

"I was always so close at the hairpin, but all the time coming out of Turn 8, I just lost that momentum," Verstappen said.

"At one point I just said 'okay, let's have a go and see what happens'.

"Then we had a little touch. Under braking, normally you don't look in your mirrors, and they're already difficult to see through. There was no one to blame, and we didn't have any real damage."

Verstappen was advised by his engineers to switch to a more powerful car mode for the assault on P1, but he says the main straight at Monaco was simply not long enough to overtake the powerful Mercedes.

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"We used a few performance modes, but for sure Mercedes was also doing that," he suggested.

"The problem is that out of that Turn 8 corner, I am always late on the throttle because he is a few metres ahead of me. You lose the momentum and the straight is too short to catch up.

"We do have a performance mode, but we still don't have the performance like Mercedes or Ferrari have. We knew that already from the beginning of the season.

"We are all working hard to, of course, improve the car, but also the engine.”

The Red Bull man finished the race as second-fastest, but was demoted to fifth and lost out on a podium position due to the five-second penalty added to his final time.