The Dutchman, who was in pole position, was beaten by Mercedes driver George Russell at the first turn. Hamilton, who was behind them, had a chance and overtook him when exiting Turn 2. When he got to Turn 3, Verstappen felt that Hamilton didn’t give him enough space as required in racing rules. As a result of this, Hamilton took second place.
He was mad about what happened and said afterwards that he thought Hamilton’s behavior didn’t match the rules.
“I tried to stop any contact on my end,” the Red Bull driver said. “The guidelines are clear about what we can do when going around other cars. But it doesn’t seem like they were followed, which is alright.
“But we still drove really fast and passed them anyways. We’ll have to keep this in mind for our future races.”
At the beginning of last year, the FIA (which is an organization that sets up car-racing rules) created a set of instructions for drivers to make sure they give enough space to other racers when they pass them.
When a car is overtaking another car, it needs to have part of its body alongside the other car and needs to overtake in a safe way while following the track. This will make sure that there’s enough room for the overtaking vehicle.
The stewards will decide if a driver is allowed to pass another car on the inside of a corner. They will look at things like when the front wheels of the passing car line up with the other car, which should happen by no later than the apex of the corner. Verstappen also said he was being careful and not doing anything too risky because he didn’t think there would be benefits from taking too many risks.
Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing said the start was really bad, and he had to be careful during lap one since there was a lot at stake. He added that his car seemed to run great throughout the race but dealing with the red flags from the FIA (the international racing governing body) created a mess. Overall, he said his car was fast and you could have easily seen that straight away.
We waited for a long time for the DRS (Drag Reduction System) to let us pass and continue racing. But it was pretty confusing during that time because we weren’t sure if we could do it in one of the times the DRS opened. It was difficult, but eventually, we were able to win the race thanks to how fast our car was!
At the last corner, Verstappen had a bit of an issue when his car almost went off-track. He tried to avoid making any tire damage by running wide onto the grass.
He was glad that he managed to win, and said: “This is my first victory and it’s been a while since the team has had one!”
