Max Verstappen did not regret his failed attempt to overtake Lewis Hamilton during the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, while explaining that he had “reasons” for not returning a position to teammate Sergio Perez late in the race.
Verstappen attacked Hamilton for P2 after an early safety car restart, but the pair clashed in the middle of the Senna Esses, sending both drivers off the track and forcing the Dutchman to pit for repairs.
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While Verstappen radioed where to park his car, the stewards felt the Red Bull man was at fault and handed out a five-second time penalty – adding to an already tough recovery effort.
Asked by Sky Sports F1 about his take on the post-race clash, Verstappen questioned Hamilton’s approach, saying: “To be honest I went around the outside and immediately felt like he wasn’t going to leave a seat. I just went for it, he didn’t give me space, so I knew we’d get together.
Sao Paulo Grand Prix 2022: Hamilton and Verstappen make contact after the safety car restart in Interlagos
“It cost him the race win, for me it gave me five seconds. It wouldn’t have mattered for my race because we were just way too slow. But it’s just a shame, I thought we could race quite well together but clearly it wasn’t the intention to race.”
Verstappen had worked his way up from P17 to P7 as the race entered the closing stages when Red Bull told him he could overtake Perez, who was struggling with medium tyres, to attack the cars ahead.
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However, on condition that Verstappen hand the spot back to Perez, who is in a close battle for P2 in the Drivers’ Championship with Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc – the reigning double world champion – should he fail to gain ground and refused to do so, before explaining his reasons in his post-race interviews.
“That’s why I spoke to the team first before coming here. We laid out why and I gave my reasons. I won’t say why, but I think they got it. I’ve explained it to them before, so it wasn’t new to me and it wasn’t new to them,” Verstappen said.
Verstappen led Perez home after refusing to give his teammate back a position
“I think it’s more important now as a team that we finally all sit together and really put everything on the table and move forward. We’re going to Abu Dhabi, of course we want to win the race, but even if there’s a chance to help Checo, I’ll do that, but that’s why it was important that we had this meeting now.”
Verstappen added that he could understand his teammate’s frustration but reiterated that he had his reasons and when pressed said if it had anything to do with the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, where Perez had one crash signaled a premature end to Q3: “You can decide that; I won’t say it.”
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The Perez Mexican vowed to “continue to work together as a team” after discussing the situation internally as he regretted his late-race slump on harder tires while his rivals overtook him on soft tyres.
“It was really disappointing. After the safety car it got worse and worse. We were on the wrong tire and only co-drivers. I couldn’t get a temperature in the tires and I could only see them passing, so I was really really disappointed. Now to Abu Dhabi, [which I’m] I’m looking forward to [to] massive,” he summarized.