It was fierce for half a lap in the Grand Prix of Great Britain. Lewis Hamilton did everything he could to get past Max Verstappen, resulting in a touch in Copse Corner. Verstappen crashed heavily and had to deal with 51G.
When Christian Horner talks to Channel 4 looking back at that particular moment, he indicates that he thinks that the light must have gone out briefly with Verstappen. That statement is at odds with what he said to journalists that Sunday afternoon, namely that Verstappen had not lost consciousness for a moment, but he may not have known all the details so shortly after the race.
“It was a serious accident. 51G…his seat was broken, I think he was knocked out for a while and it was definitely his worst crash ever of his career,” said Horner, who indicates that Verstappen himself felt that he had disappointed the team.
“Obviously he was very frustrated with the outcome of that crash. He had already done all the hard work by winning the sprint race and thereby securing pole position for the feature race. At the start he managed to hold on to the lead, while it would have been an advantage to start from P2 all weekend.”
So in the end it didn’t work for him on that Sunday afternoon, while Hamilton took the victory. “It was tough for Max, he was disappointed that he had disappointed the team. After all, we suffered a lot of damage and that in a world where the budget cap has become a theme.”
However, Verstappen straightened his back very quickly, according to Horner: “On Monday he already said: “If I could do the race again at this moment, then I am able to do that. Although quite battered and it will hurt quite a bit, but I could do it.”
Not much later, it comes to the crash at Monza, where it is asked whether Horner had spoken to Verstappen about not checking how Hamilton was doing. After all, wasn’t that what Hamilton was accused of when he celebrated his victory at Silverstone so exuberantly?
“Those are two different situations”, Horner replies: “Max hit the wall at Silverstone at almost 260 km/h and with an impact of 51G, he was off the world for a while, and was flown to the hospital. That is different from on “Sunday in Monza. Verstappen felt that Hamilton was doing everything he could to drive backwards. He knew that Hamilton was completely fine. The medical team did not even see the need to turn out. So those were really two different situations.”
– .
