Christian Horner warns of more Max Verstappen Lewis Hamilton drama to come

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton fighting before the crash — Photo: © LAT Images

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Horner warns of more Verstappen Hamilton drama to come

Monza saw a second moment of heavy contact between Hamilton and Verstappen

Sam Hall

Sunday 26 September 2021 08:00

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has warned of further incidents to come between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton given the racing nature of both F1 drivers.

Verstappen and Mercedes driver Hamilton have clashed on track a number of times this year, notably with heavy incidents at Silverstone and most recently at Monza.

On each occasion, the blame for the collisions has been only "predominantly" placed on a driver, with the suggestion from the stewards being both could have done more to avoid contact.

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With eight races remaining, and with the F1 title on the line, Horner feels the no-holds-barred attitude from both will continue.

"Obviously, we want it to be a really competitive, clean run-in to the end of the season," said Horner.

"But inevitably, when the drivers are starting next to each other so often and they're racing at venues that are very, very tight, Max is a no quarter [given] kind of guy.

"Lewis has demonstrated that he doesn't want to give anything either and when you get two racers of that mentality, you get incidents."

Verstappen holds a five-point lead over Hamilton in the drivers' standings but will start at the back of the grid in Russia on Sunday as a result of taking a power unit penalty.

Asked if he expected further collisions going forward, Horner added: "They're racers and they're going to race so to say that they're never going to touch each other again in the next eight races...

"I doubt very much Toto [Wolff, Mercedes team principal] has that much control over Lewis and we don't over Max. It's down to them in the car, racing for the biggest trophy in motor racing.

"Monza was unfortunate. I think that it was a dramatic-looking incident at slow speeds. It was neither driver wanting to concede and the end result was what we saw."

Listen to the Stewards' Room podcast to hear the thoughts of the GPFans Global team on the Monza clash between Hamilton and Verstappen!