Hamilton dismisses Verstappen’s complaint his Silverstone celebration was “disrespectful”

2021 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton rejected Max Verstappen’s claim his victory celebration at Silverstone was “disrespectful”, pointing out he was unaware at the time his rival had been taken to the hospital.

The Mercedes driver pointed out he had seen Verstappen out of his car following their first-lap collision in the British Grand Prix, which sent the Red Bull driver into the barrier. Verstappen was subsequently taken to the circuit’s medical centre and later to hospital for further checks.

“I saw on the screen that he’d got out of the car and he looked okay and I was told he was fine,” said Hamilton. “I wasn’t aware until the media press pens afterwards he had visited the hospital.”

“None of us ever want to see another driver injured or put a driver in harm’s way,” Hamilton added.

Verstappen complained Hamilton had been “waving the flag around like nothing has happened” and said he “wouldn’t want to be seen like that”.

However Hamilton stated: “I don’t believe our behaviour was disrespectful.”

“As I said it’s one thing knowing and then celebrating what happened and there’s one thing not knowing and celebrating. Obviously I wasn’t aware.”

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The world champion said he was caught up in the joy of celebrating his home victory with fans who were not able to attend last year’s race due to the pandemic.

“It’s my home grand prix and we worked incredibly hard for who knows how long to get a result like that,” he said. “And what a monumental moment it was for us to experience the whole home crowd being there for the first time, obviously since last year was missed.

“Emotions were running high. It wasn’t an intentional celebration it was just the joy of seeing so many people and so many people celebrating, being together and that’s the natural emotion. I’m not going to hide my emotions. It was an amazing feeling to see so many people.”

The pair have spoken following the collision but Hamilton does not believe his rival is prepared to put the incident behind them yet.

“Our focus is solely on this weekend. I did give Max a call after the race to just check if he was okay and let him know that the respect is still there. Obviously it’s perhaps not reciprocated but that’s okay.”

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30 comments on “Hamilton dismisses Verstappen’s complaint his Silverstone celebration was “disrespectful””

  1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
    29th July 2021, 15:17

    I did give Max a call after the race to just check if he was okay and let him know that the respect is still there. Obviously it’s perhaps not reciprocated but that’s okay.

    Obviously, it’s perhaps … Ha-ha-ha!

  2. Andy (@andyfromsandy)
    29th July 2021, 15:26

    One article from Max and a reply from Lewis.

    If there had been anything really serious I would of expected the FIA to intervene.

    Why did the celebration take place and not be curtailed is perhaps a question for the FIA and not MB.

    1. You can ask yourself why toto “failed” to mention it to Lewis.
      Secondly, suggesting max is still not happy after a private call is at sign of much respect, again.
      Lewis has some serious issues

      1. Is not a sign…

      2. @erikje –

        So the bigger person who made a personal call has some personal issues, but the person who is not prepared to put the incident behind them – even AFTER the call, has no issues?

        I think Max fans have some SERIOUS personal issues.

        1. Why would Verstappen make a call to Hamilton? Hamilton was judged to be predominantly to blame. Furthermore I get that Hamilton only called to ask about the well-being of Verstappen, not to apologize or something else… if that makes you a bigger person then that’s fine, but did you expect Verstappen to call Hamilton to tell him he was alright?

  3. Sush Meerkat
    29th July 2021, 15:42

    What’s Lewis supposed to do?, Hold up celebrating whenever there’s a crash?

    1. IKR, i didn’t see Max stop celebrating his 1st win when Lewis and Rosberg crash out in Spain.

      1. Tommy Scragend
        29th July 2021, 18:32

        The difference there was that Verstappen wasn’t involved in the incident which took Hamilton and Rosberg out.

        1. Did one of them end up in hospital?

          1. F1oSaurus (@)
            29th July 2021, 20:10

            He had a checkup and was fine.

  4. This is all getting very ‘handbags-at-dawn’. It’s probably brilliant for the sport, I doubt Liberty are complaining.

    1. @bernasaurus – ‘handbags-at-dawn’ – well put.

  5. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    29th July 2021, 15:51

    Found him celebrating so hard like he’d just won the championship a bit weird to be honest – dude’s won races before but rarely as loudly as that. Considering he won after punting the guy that’s been beating him out of the race, got a deserved penalty and then only needed to beat his team-mate – that was moved out of the way and pass a wounded Ferrari to victory… I wouldn’t really put that up there as a classic victory or deserving of quite the… intense, celebration he did.

    1. I think part of the celebration was because it was the British Grand Prix in front of a full house, after a season and a half of no/few fans in the stands. If it had been half-empty grandstands in, say, France, we wouldn’t have seen the same reaction from him.

      1. AND it was another record for wins at silverstone. 8! That is insane! Why the hell wouldn’t you celebrate?

    2. Manoli Moriaty
      29th July 2021, 16:07

      Merc has had their worst consecutive results up until Silverstone. The celebration was a reference to overcoming their slump.

      Having said that, I wouldn’t put it past Hamilton to intentionally poking Verstappen as a way to get under his skin. And seeing his and RBR’s reaction, I’d say he succeeded. All is fair in love and war, and F1 is certainly both of those.

    3. Rarely as loud at Silverstone. Did you miss the crowd surfing years? He even goes into the crowd at Monza if he wins

      https://apnews.com/article/5e14f17244874d2aabe37b546f0adb93

    4. Marinated Monolith (@)
      29th July 2021, 16:15

      I mean, he’s also a British driver that just won a race in front of his home crowd after Silverstone took a year of absence. Like, of course he’s gonna have one hell of a celebration.

      Pretty much everything seems to have gone up to eleven after the lockdown. Didn’t the same thing happen with Euro?

      1. Tommy Scragend
        29th July 2021, 18:33

        I mean, he’s also a British driver that just won a race in front of his home crowd after Silverstone took a year of absence.

        Silverstone took a year of absence? There were two races at Silverstone last year!

        1. I’m sure you know he meant the crowd was absent, but yeah lets use exclamation marks and get unnecessarily riled up.

    5. Hey, that’s pretty much what I said below the other article on the same matter! Always convenient to agree on things. If only the two articles on the same questions were merged so we could have a centralised discussion – that would be really convenient ;)

  6. This really needs to be put to bed, it’s over and done with move on…

    1. Never! The outcome isn’t fair. Least deserved hamilton win at silverstone, I think, think about 2008 and 2016 in the rain, and even races like 2017 with a slightly better car than ferrari and underperforming vettel felt better.

      1. F1oSaurus (@)
        29th July 2021, 20:19

        @esploratore1 Verstappen getting his karma for the foul defending and overtaking moves he’s been pulling would actually make this a great win for Hamilton too. Instead of being bullied out of an overtake, Hamilton made it stick and instead Verstappen finally got the consequences for a change.

        If taking the win from P4 with 20 laps to go, in front of your home crowd, for a record 8th time, getting back in the WDC title hunt against all odds etc etc isn’t enough already to be extremely happy with that win.

    2. We are going to milk this drama untill it is bonedry.
      This. Is. F1.

      And also, this is the way.

    3. Well then shield your eyes and ears for the SkyTV lead in tomorrow when I’m sure we will see 25 replays interspersed with Horner smoldering in the pitlane overlayed by some thumping bass.

      1. Are you sure you’re not getting mixed up with Netflix?

  7. Derek Sequeira
    30th July 2021, 2:40

    Amid all the comments, opinions ad nauseum, no incontrovertible evidence emerges that this was nothing more than a racing incident. So Mercedes and Red Bull get over this and move on.

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