Lewis Hamilton Expertly Details His Overtaking Plan on Max Verstappen After Near Crash at Interlagos

Lewis Hamilton was a popular winner in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix this weekend. He put in a stellar performance after clawing his way back from P10 at the start. Despite having the fastest car on the circuit this weekend, Hamilton had to work hard to get past his championship rival Max Verstappen for the win.

The 7-time world champion passed Verstappen on the track with 10 laps to go. But he had made two attempts before his race-winning overtake. Max had pushed Lewis wide into Turn 4 in Hamilton’s previous attempt. So, the Mercedes driver tried to dummy his rival to gain better positioning. This, in turn, helped him to get a better exit from the Senna S’s to attack Max.

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I got to kind-of dummy him as such into Turn 1: Lewis Hamilton

The Brit mentioned he had a few options on how he would get past the Red Bull driver. Hamilton explained that he had considered dive-bombing late into Turn 1 but decided against it.

“I got into Turn 1, I got to kind-of dummy him as such into Turn 1. I was either going to dive super-late into Turn 1, so then he had to block, and I got to be able to position the car correctly through Turns 1 and 2, and I already knew through Three that I would have a far better slingshot past him because I was closer,” said Lewis.

But Lewis finally made his move on lap 59 on the straight after Senna S’s as Verstappen was just a sitting duck after a bad exit.

“At that point, I just knew I was ahead going into the braking zone, so yeah. And after that, it was really trying to keep him out of my DRS, which wasn’t too difficult because I guess it’s hard to follow behind. It’s just the first one lap, I think the first lap, or the first lap he got around, just making sure, but it was fine after that.” explained Hamilton.

The win helped him close down Verstappen’s lead in the championship. The Mercedes driver is now just 14 points behind Max, with 3 races to go in the 2021 season.

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