I’ve been thinking a lot about yesterdays “event”, and the more I think about it Max just had so much more to lose in that situation than Hamilton. Lewis was on the back foot and had to come out swinging to keep the championship alive, Max could easily have let Hamilton through and would probably have won the race on strategy anyway. At worst he would have lost, what, seven points or something.
Hamilton was the big winner there not because he dodged a penalty and took victory, but because Max went all in on a scrap he probably should have bailed out of. If Lewis had had that 34 point lead he would never have defended that hard. I’m not blaming Max for the crash, I think it was a racing incident and practically inevitable with how hard they have been going at it this year, but I do think it reveals a big chink in his armour.
Also, it must be said, the social media has been a clusterfuck. I’m not surprised that the F1 socials had to pour water on some of the racist stuff earlier as I saw a couple of memes yesterday I cannot unsee. It was the worst it’s been for a very long time. I think there have been a lot of people waiting for the last eighteen months to give Hamilton a kicking and now they’ve got their chance.
I also think that Horner and Macro poured oil on that fire with their extreme and unfair comments, suggesting that Hamilton put Max into the wall intentionally and saying he should get a race ban. I think they would do well to walk a lot of that rhetoric back, as that itself was an incredibly inappropriate and disrespectful thing to say about a seven time world champion.
Also, if the shoe was on the other foot we know they would be defending Verstappen to the hilt.