Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen have been bitter rivals on the Formula One track for a few seasons now. Lewis had dominated with a superior Mercedes car every time as well. But last season Max Verstappen got the better of the British racer and won the championship. The ending to the race was one of the most controversial endings in Formula One History.
A major reason for speculation that there is bad blood between the two racers, is that Hamilton and Verstappen had 3 crashes last year. The crashes were at Monza, Silverstone, and Saudi Arabia. The way the races were called by the FIA was also deemed controversial and there was a lot of talk among fans that Mercedes was getting the calls in their favor.
Fans certainly aren’t saying that now after the way the last race ended last season at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. There was a lot of hype coming into the race because both Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were tied in points and the race was the deciding race for the championship.
Verstappen had pole position but lost it to Hamilton as soon as the race began. One of the reasons was that Verstappen started with soft tires that suffered higher degradation than Hamilton’s medium compound tires. Hamilton led in the race especially because Mercedes didn’t pit when Red Bull did and kept him out to maintain pole position. That was until there was a crash at turn 14 ( Nicholas Latifi).
The safety car was released with 5 laps remaining and was supposed to finish with Hamilton winning. But the FIA made a controversial decision allowing the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to lap. The rest is history. Verstappen with his new tires easily overtook Hamilton and won the championship.
When asked about his relationship with Verstappen, Hamilton told Naomi Schiff of sky sports F1,’ Me and Max, we see each other in the paddock, and things are normal, We’re two individual drivers. We have a lot of common in a sense of how much we love doing what we do and driving, then on the other side, we’re ruthless. He is ruthless, I am.’
He went on to say that there are no friends on the track but that it was important to maintain respect on the track.
🗣️ "We are fighters out there, there's no friends on track."
Lewis Hamilton discusses his relationship with Max Verstappen. pic.twitter.com/M79D1DLmm4
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) March 11, 2022