Damon Hill: “Racing fairly is not in Verstappen’s repertoire”

While Max Verstappen shows little remorse (“20 seconds is a lot, but I’m not going to cry”) or willingness to change (“I’m a driver like I think I have to drive”), the truth is that something is changing in Formula 1 after his latest manoeuvres on the track in his fight for the World Championship with Lando Norris. Because of the FIA sanctions, such as those two ten-second penalties in Mexico - and because of the criticism coming from the paddock, especially from the team of his main rival; and from experts who analyze the championship.

One of those is Damon Hill, who says that “The problem that Max has is he simply refuses to concede any turf at all, to anyone, in an overtake. So that’s the situation,” Hill explained on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast, when asked about the battle between the Red Bull and McLaren drivers after the start of the Mexican GP.

“Whether 10 seconds was the right penalty, I don’t know, but I definitely think the second move he did was just daft. It was Dick Dastardly stuff,” Hill continued. “He just simply accelerated to the apex and it prevented Lando, which looked like Lando was giving him the opportunity taking the place back – Lando really didn’t have much option and they actually did touch, so that was silly driving”.

“Max obviously has great brilliance and a huge competitive spirit, but I don’t think that [his move] is something to be proud of,” added the 1996 champion: “The aerial footage is very clear to me, he made no attempt to back off and make the corner and leave room for Lando. It was just simply a case of: ‘You’re not coming through.’ And that’s okay, but is it what we want to see as a sport?

“I think there was some really good wheel-to-wheel action with Liam Lawson and Checo [Perez] – it got a little bit more pushy and shovy but I don’t think it was a malicious attempt to prevent the other person from passing. They were trying to keep things together and they did race wheel to wheel. It is possible to race fairly and that is something I’m not sure that Max is capable of – it’s not in his repertoire. It’s not in his philosophy. His philosophy is that ‘You’re not coming past.”

Hill: “It seems that Max is free to do whatever he wants”

“I definitely think you shouldn’t be allowed to use your car as a weapon and to just simply block the track because you won’t see any overtaking if you were allowed to allow people to just weave all over the place and do whatever they wanted. You’ll never see a single overtake, because everyone would just sit there and go: ‘Well, there’s no point, because he’s going to have me off. What’s the point of even trying?” added the Briton, who made his position clear on what happened at the Hermanos Rodríguez

And while he did not go into the issue of the fact that double the number of seconds was applied to Max in each penalty as to Norris in Austin, he does agree with the stewards’ decision not to leave the world championship leader (by 47 points) unpunished.

Hill’s criticism is not directed exclusively at Verstappen, he also points to Red Bull for the paternalistic attitude it shows towards its driver, as demonstrated by Christian Horner, his boss, when he appeared before the press after the race at the Hermanos Rodríguez with images of Norris’ telemetry to try to justify the Dutchman.

“It almost seems like Max is free to do what he wants, his team will never criticise his driving. I think that at some point there has to be a conversation because it is the team’s responsibility to contribute to their driver having a good attitude,” says Hill.