Ricciardo confident Max Verstappen 'would not turn his back' on injured Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen crash at Monza — Photo: © LAT Images

Max Verstappen - Lewis Hamilton

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Ricciardo confident Verstappen 'would not turn his back' on injured Hamilton

McLaren driver feels former team-mate may have carried anger into Monza

Ian Parkes

Wednesday 22 September 2021 05:00

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Daniel Ricciardo is confident Max Verstappen would not have walked away from his Italian Grand Prix crash with Lewis Hamilton if he was aware his F1 title rival was injured.

Verstappen has been criticised for leaving Hamilton in his Mercedes after his Red Bull was launched into the air and landed on top of the W12 at Monza, hitting the seven-time champion on the helmet as the halo saved his life.

Verstappen's actions have been perceived as hypocritical after he criticised Hamilton for celebrating his British Grand Prix triumph following a lap-one collision that resulted in a 51g crash for the Dutch driver and a visit to the hospital.

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Ricciardo, who went on to win his first grand prix for over three years and first for McLaren since the end of 2012, has suggested there may have been residual anger inside his former team-mate from the Silverstone incident that spilt over into Monza.

“I know Max," said Ricciardo, speaking on the Pardon My Take video podcast. "I was team-mates with him for a few years and that’s him, he’s a competitor, he’ll leave it on the track and that’s it.

“I guess he probably still carried a little bit of frustration or anger or emotion from Silverstone, so maybe that was the reason why he was kind of like ‘Stuff this, I’m just going to walk away’.

“There were things like Lewis trying to reverse and get out. I've already probably got too involved, maybe Max saw that and he’s like ‘Okay, Lewis is fine’."

Believing Verstappen would have reacted if Hamilton had been harmed, Ricciardo added: "This is going to be diplomatic, I would say all of us drivers, for sure we've got rivalries, and for sure we don’t all get on the best.

"But if we had a crash and we knew that guy was injured, 100 per cent, hand on heart, I believe all of us would go and try and help. If we knew it was something serious, we wouldn’t just turn our backs.”

As with the incident at Silverstone, what unfolded at Monza has caused widespread debate as to who was in the right.

The stewards decided Verstappen was "predominantly to blame", leading to a three-place grid penalty for this weekend's Russian Grand Prix.

Suggested to Ricciardo there are drivers in F1 who would rather push their car to the limit and potentially crash than finish with a result they would not be happy with, he replied: “There are definitely a few drivers like that.

“I think that’s a good mentality to have, in terms of leaving it all on the table. But obviously, Max and Lewis are now fighting for the championship, so I think if that’s your one and only mentality, then it's probably going to bite you more times than not.

“It’s just trying to pick your moments. I don’t want to say cut your losses when you can. In saying that, I don’t think the incident was stupid or anything that Max did.

“I think he saw a little opportunity, he tried to go for it. It obviously wasn’t maybe completely there.”