Max Verstappen has made a habit out of winning this year. As things stand, we’ve only just scratched the surface of the depth of his dominance. With Red Bull going from strength to strength, Verstappen’s era in the sport may have only just begun. While the Dutch lion is effortlessly putting the competition to shame on the track, off of it, he has a personal vendetta to settle with his arch nemesis, Lewis Hamilton. Lo and behold, it seems as though he is winning that bout, too.
Hamilton is often respected for his poise and champion mentality rather than his whopping 7 world championships. However, in the recent past, with Verstappen running away with all the glory and accolades, the Brit has been uncharacteristically vindictive. For instance, as Verstappen stood on the cusp of racing immortality, the 38-year-old Silver Arrows’ talisman took an unsavory jibe at the 2x champion with his now-infamous ‘teammates’ jibe.
Max Verstappen couldn’t care less about Lewis Hamilton
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Even though he wouldn’t admit it, Hamilton is eager to get under the skin of Verstappen. If he can’t ruffle his feathers on the track, at least off of it, the Brit is dying to earn some brownie points over the Dutch lion. Unfortunately, his master plan has backfired.
🗣️ | 🇸🇬 Max on focusing on himself, unlike Hamilton emphasising the teammates he had
“It's not nice of Hamilton towards the teammates I had, but it is ironic that after that interview of his in Monza, many of my teammates were ahead of him in qualifying. I am not focused on… pic.twitter.com/aeEfVoMhok
— RBR News 🇳🇱🇲🇽 (@redbulletin) September 14, 2023
In response to Hamilton’s comments, Verstappen was quoted by Formule1.nl as saying, “It’s about your own performance, how you perform in your race weekends and how you work together with your team. The rest is secondary. Maybe there is a little jealousy. Nice for Netflix? That doesn’t really matter to me.”
With Verstappen setting his priorities straight, Hamilton, too, seems to have started whistling a different tune.
Hamilton backtracks on Verstappen insults to focus on himself
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No matter who comes out on top in this verbal feud between the duo, Hamilton knows that at the end of the day, the glory still remains on track. So, after he got what he had to say about Verstappen out of his system, he promptly resumed his bid to get back to the very front of the field in F1.
Motorsport.com quoted the 7x champion as revealing, “I was just asked a question earlier: would you rather take Max out of the equation or take Adrian Newey out of the equation? Something like that. And I was like, ‘neither’, I think we just have to level up and do a better job. They’ve done an exceptional job, and you can’t fault them for the amazing work that they collectively are doing and have done.”
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