‘444’ Was All Max Verstappen Needed to Crush #44 Lewis Hamilton’s Dreams at the Hungarian GP

Lewis Hamilton‘s amazing pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix gave the F1 world grounds to believe for a brief moment that the seven-time champion might challenge Max Verstappen‘s rocket ship. Given that Red Bull’s qualifying performance was far from ideal, the presumption had been established, only for the F1 community and the spectators to witness Max Verstappen’s real blistering pace. To put this in context even further, all it took for the Dutchman to derail Lewis Hamilton’s ambitions at the Budapest track on race day was a journey of “444.”

Max Verstappen’s hopes of continuing his pole-winning streak and joining another elite list were dashed as he was edged out by the Mercedes maestro in qualifying by a slim margin of 0.003 seconds. Nevertheless, Max Verstappen made sure to provide one of the best performances of the season at the Hungaroring track despite his complaints about the car’s understeer.

Lewis Hamilton, donning car number 44, had high hopes of challenging Max Verstappen, however, he was overrun right away. Spilling water on the Mercedes ace’s goal, the Dutchman quickly closed up an enormous lead to win his 44th race overall. According to F1 Maximaal, when grading Verstappen’s impressive driving performance, Auto Motor und Sport’s Michael Schmidt provided an exclusive mention of a special number.

Schmidt praised Verstappen’s lap times and said, ” Verstappen only needed 444 meters to help the opponents out of the dream.” By making this claim, Schmidt brought attention to the fact that while having a start/finish straight that is rather short, the distance from first place to the braking zone for Turn 1 is 444 meters, which is longer than at other sites F1 has visited.

Later he added, “He pushed Hamilton out into the first corner and then disappeared on the horizon. Verstappen’s lap times were breathtaking. On average, half a second per lap better than the first chaser.’ ” [translated via Google]

READ MORE: “Don’t Think It Makes Sense”: Lewis Hamilton & Co. Served a Cold Reminder as Ferrari Boss Jumps to Max Verstappen’s Rescue

Lewis Hamilton has always loved the number 44, and now that Max Verstappen has won his race number 44, he has made a very nasty jab at the seven-time champion that the LH army will not tolerate at any cost.

Max Verstappen takes a Nasty Jab at Lewis Hamilton after winning race number 44

Max Verstappen has been winning races with ease. Since he had already amassed 15 victories the season before and there were several records that he was confident he could break, this year was always going to be special for him. In addition to numerous milestones set last season, this year he surpassed Ayrton Senna’s previous record of 41 race victories. And carrying on his stupendous performance the Dutchman took his ninth victory of the year and 44th overall at the tracks of Budapest.

After achieving the milestone number made famous by Hamilton using it as his F1 career number, the double champion took a nasty dig at Lewis Hamilton. A reporter questioned the Dutch driver during the post-race press conference about what else he hoped to do for the remainder of the year. To which he responded, “Hopefully, I don’t stay on 44. That would be terrible!” Yeah, I need to get to 45 quickly!” A big smile that the clever F1 fans caught quickly followed his statement.

The friendly banter and scathing jabs amongst competitors have increased interest in the summit of motorsports around the world. However, if you were Hamilton, how would you have responded to this harsh remark?

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