Max Verstappen Trolls Lewis Hamilton for Not Being “Fast Enough” While Shattering His Reckless Image With Mature Statement

Max Verstappen is often slammed for his overly aggressive driving style in F1. From aggressively diving in narrow spaces to pushing others off the track, he’s done it all. However, when it came to the lights out at the Australian GP, the Dutchman did not put up much fight against George Russell and let him take the lead. Then in Turn 3, he let Lewis Hamilton pass him and, for a change, blamed him for pushing him off the track. The race winner has now issued a clarification about why he did so while taking a dig at his old nemesis.

The P2 finish in Melbourne was the first podium finish of the season for Hamilton. After putting up a depressed image of himself following the two failed outings until then, the Briton is back to his aggressive self. He even showed an invigorated thirst to climb back to the top after the positive result in Australia. Verstappen has, however, thrown all those hopes in the bin with his recent comments.

Speaking on The Chequered Flag Podcast, he said, “We just didn’t have a good start. We didn’t choose the right procedure. I was also pretty careful on the first lap. I didn’t want to risk damaging the car and the others behind me were really aggressive. They knew they weren’t fast enough, so the only chance they had was in the first lap and they took advantage of it.” [Translated using Google]

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Further on the podcast, he also talked about the RB19 possessing more power. However, the uncertainty over the tire’s life prevented the Dutchman from pushing it too hard.

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There are certainly no doubts about how quick the RB19 is. After the very first race, George Russell predicted Red Bull to win every race with the car. Later, Hamilton dubbed it the fastest car he had ever seen. Now, Max himself has admitted to holding himself back from pushing the car to its full potential, as the life of the hard tires is still not known to any team.

He said, “We’re just trying to do our best with the development of the car, but it’s also about managing the speed. We didn’t really know — I don’t think anyone really knew — how long that hard tire would last.”

“So it’s just about getting the car across the line because I think we had a bit more speed than the others.”

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Teams will introduce the first bout of changes to the car in Azerbaijan. The weekend will also feature the season’s first sprint race. It will be interesting to see how much the current grid will change following the amendments to the cars.