24/05/2025 18:45
Max Verstappen has blamed Ferrari for his incident with Lewis
Hamilton in qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, not the
seven-time world champion. Hamilton and Verstappen have to visit
the stewards following qualifying after the Briton was judged to
have impeded the Dutchman at Massenet in Q1. The Ferrari driver
was told by his team that Verstappen behind was driving slowly,
when in fact the reigning world champion was on a hot lap. It led
to a close moment between the duo, with Hamilton having been
cruising on the racing line which forced Verstappen to go wide.
Hamilton immediately complained over the radio, and apologised to
his 2021 rival straight after qualifying. Despite the initial scare
and frustration of the incident, Verstappen has pointed the blame
at Ferrari rather than Hamilton. "Of course, at the time, you see
the car blocking you, and when you're there in high speed, it's
quite, I would say, it's not nice," explained Verstappen. "But
then I saw immediately that the team told him that I was driving
slow whilst I was clearly driving fast. So it's not Lewis' fault. I
quickly chatted to Lewis already about it. "Yeah, it's very
simple. But of course, it can't happen. But that's the team's
mistake." Verstappen expects Hamilton penalty Despite Verstappen
not judging Hamilton to be at fault, he does expect the 40-year-old
to receive a penalty. "Of course, I know that it's not his fault,
but I even got a one-place grid penalty for not even impeding on a
fast lap," Verstappen told select media, including RacingNews365 .
"So, yeah, if you get away with that, I'm really surprised. It's
not like I'm trying to get Lewis a penalty. It's just the precedent
of what they have been using in the stewards room. "I know it's
the team's fault, clearly, because Lewis is normally always quite
correct with these things, like moving out of the way, and no one
really wants to impede anyone on purpose. "So, yeah, this was
just, yeah, unfortunate, but it happened."
