Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Hungaroring, 2021

Booing of Hamilton ‘not correct and not nice’, says Verstappen

2021 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Max Verstappen criticised the booing directed aimed at his championship rival Lewis Hamilton by some in the crowd after qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Hamilton claimed pole position for tomorrow’s race as Mercedes locked out the front row of the grid. Verstappen, who will start third, said he did not approve of the booing, but doubts it affects any of the drivers.

“It’s not correct, of course,” he said. “But at the end of the day we are drivers, you shouldn’t get disturbed by these kind of things. You should just focus on what you have to do and that’s deliver in the car.

“Luckily, of course, we wear helmets when you’re driving, where it matters you don’t hear anything. That’s maybe a bit different to other sports so probably we are quite lucky with that.

“It’s not nice but it shouldn’t influence any of us. I think we’re all very professional and know what we have to do on track anyway.”

Hamilton’s team mate Valtteri Bottas said those responsible for the booing should question what they are doing.

“I heard a lot of booing at the end of the qualifying and I don’t understand it,” he said. “I would like the people to question themselves, their behaviour, because I don’t think it’s fair.

“We are here as an athlete to give every single bit we have for the sport we love. And Lewis, he did an amazing lap at the end and then you get booing. So I think the people, just question yourself.

“It’s not right, it’s not fair and we don’t want to see these kind of things.”

Hamilton, who said earlier the booing “fuels me”, brushed off the jeers. “People act wild when it’s sport,” he said. “It’s competition, and I don’t take it to heart. I must be doing something right to be up front.”

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2021 Hungarian Grand Prix

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44 comments on “Booing of Hamilton ‘not correct and not nice’, says Verstappen”

  1. Absolutely correct. Fans can’t deliver their message by speech, they won’t be heard. So they use basic primate vocalizations to deliver their expression. Booing is that basic expression that expresses negative feelings.

    1. 👍 agreed

    2. @regs Fans can deliver their speech through online means, and generally do…

  2. Good for Max calling this out. It’s the right thing to do. As a fan, I would have booed hard. Why you ask? Well, because I don’t think he got to hear the real reaction of most fans at Silverstone. Also, because I know it would trigger him a little bit. Just like it did with Rosberg when we booed him in Spa a few years ago

    1. the problem is that this was called out before, after last race. Thing is, giving it this much attention made it worse…

      Or …. the unsportsmanlike and deliberate slowing down did

  3. Grow up

  4. I don’t understand what’s wrong with booing. It happens in a lot of sports. It tells me fans are passionate.

    1. Lol, so right

    2. Just shows that you only care for your team, not for the sport @anunaki. Imagine the Brazilian fans booing the German players after every goal in 2014? That would have been ridiculous. Instead, they were mad at their team for not doing a good enough job.

      1. Nothing wrong with that imho.

      2. When you’re losing 7-1 it’s obvious who deserves to be up front.

    3. So who was the last individual sportsperson you booed?

      1. In front of the TV a lot. As far as live sport I mainly go to football matches to my favorite team (Feyenoord Rotterdam) and there it’s common.

        I tend to have favorites when I follow sport and I also dislike some sportsman. First I remember were Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis in 88 when I was a kid.

        That’s just the way I experience sports. Can be football, cycling, tennis, F1 (I used to be against Schumi for example), NBA basketball, or any other sport like at the olympics.

    4. @anunaki The problem with booing is that you need competitors to have a competition. Booing some of the competitors potentially weakens them, which in turn means they can’t catalyse competitors you do like into giving their best performances. Everyone loses when that happens.

  5. Horner will use that photo to complain that Hamilton punched Verstappen in the fist.

    1. He’ll probably get Albon over to the circuit next week to recreate Hamilton’s walk from the car, to prove that it was in fact possible to avoid contact if he’d moved to the right a bit…

      1. +1 made me laugh.

    2. Green Flag you made my day with your comment…..LOL !!!

    3. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      31st July 2021, 20:32

      That’s funny:)

    4. These kind of reactions and the followers later on, are just as booing.
      Good to see you got the message…not.

      1. What message?

        1. the message that some max fans are just as pathetic as whinger horner

    5. ROFLMBO! +1

  6. What would be the complaint? That Hamilton deliberately broke Vestappen’s wrist? Lol 🤣🤣🤣

  7. Perhaps some Hungarians didn’t appreciate a visiting Brit using his “platform” to criticize the Hungarian government. Not saying I know/like/agree with/care about the anti-gay law that Hamilton, possibly rightly, was criticizing. But I think it’s reasonable to think that some locals may have been booing something other than strictly Formula One issues.

    1. Looking at the pictures there is a very diverse crowd booing.
      Not much “orange” but all kind of visitors. Probably the outspoken opinion about the medieval laws did not help.
      Diversity in booing. Well at least lewis is on the right track.

      1. Right, it did not help. The Dutch fans travel well & mob mentality rules, of course. Activism, right or wrong, will also create a response – certainly when it’s coming from an outsider. Just an observation.

    2. @Griffin Insiders aren’t exactly getting an easy time criticising Hungarian policies at the moment, so there should be no surprise that outsiders have taken up the cause.

      1. I’m not surprised.

  8. Striking to note that the booing on Hamilton isn’t just because they’re Max fans and the repercussions of their last round’s crash, but very likely also coming out of nationalistic reasons for some Hungarians on another polemical topic such as the “anti-gay” law (a so called child-protection statute that in reality establishes additional censorship and as such should be considered disgusting for anyone who not hypocritically values freedom, even though it’s not yet Nazi sort of stuff like some PC proponents out there unsurprisingly are suggesting ‒ the same type of clowns who claim we shouldn’t have nothing to worry about CCP’s China ‒ therefore, no good signs from Hungarian politics but still far from gas chambers).
    As this subject is fully political, one can only expect more shenanigans to dominate the backgroud like there had been involving Hungary in the Euros if those involved decide to stir it up any further.

    1. @rodewulf The proposed law also bans any positive portrayal of LGBTQ+ people to people under the age of 18 – which is against EU law, among other things. Note that Sebastian Vettel has also criticised that law, although he didn’t do well enough to get targetted for booing.

      1. @alianora-la-canta I’d argue that he didn’t cause a high speed collision in the hottest title fight of the last 5 years but, that’s only true for recent records as Seb also had made some dangerous moves (even more, actually) even when he was still in contention for the WDC back in 2018 so… I’ll concede it’s different and Lewis is even more in a bit of a boiling cauldron here. But at least he can count on a press that is massively favourable to him (with some notable exceptions, of course) as a British driver. Dutch press is way less of a significant factor in comparision.

    2. I don’t care about anything you just wrote, aside from your mischaracterizations of what I wrote (for instance, your replacing of my words “reasonable to think” with “very likely”). I made an observation.

      1. I don’t care about anything you just wrote, aside from your mischaracterizations of what I wrote (for instance, your replacing of my words “reasonable to think” with “very likely”). I made an observation.

        What’s up with that pointless comment now? Anyway, comment section is free, but still it’s such a waste.

        1. You changed the meaning of my message by misquoting me, which I pointed out. Hardly pointless.

          1. You changed the meaning of my message by misquoting me, which I pointed out. Hardly pointless.

            Not even getting to the point that I jumped all previous comments to post mine, the most amusing thing about it all is that those actually ended up as pretty different comments. So the fuss is pointless. Change “reasonable to think” with “very likely” is an irrelevant change for a big text, and also the topic of two comments being the same is as rare as a white swan, what makes it even more laughable. But if you want credits for being the first to point it out that the crowd was booing because of bigoted nationalism too, then, you won! Congratulations! ;)

        2. @rodewulf – It appeared to me that you were replying to my comment; I see now that was not the case, so I apologize – my fault!

          1. It appeared to me that you were replying to my comment; I see now that was not the case, so I apologize – my fault!

            Apologise accepted! ;)

  9. Hamilton earns £40million a year to do what he loves, I think he’s a big boy and can take it and to be fair to him he did. For that money they could have dumped the contents of the nearest portaloo over me and it wouldn’t have ruined my day.

    Each spectator paid £200 or so to be there today, they’ve paid for the right to vocalise their support good or bad? Giving them more right than Bottas or Verstappen to comment as they are both paid to be there. As long as it’s NOT racial related then it’s all part of a healthy sporting atmosphere that we’ve missed these last 18 months.

  10. Clearly in that picture Max’s fist is ahead of Lewis’s. One can measure the length of out stretch of MV arm vs LH sooooo conclusion anybody?

  11. I watch cricket and I have seen English fans booing Australian players in Ashes, never have I seen the Australians complaint about it.

  12. I am not sure to agree on the socially desired rejection of the boo-ing. If you as an artist or athlete decide to perform your skills in front of a crowd, they are allowed to provide you feedback by cheering for you, right? They are allowed to smile. But they are not allowed to cry or to Boo? That seems very pretentious to me and arrogant. And a bit hypocritical as well. Maybe we should think this over before dismissing it. Not allowing it borders censorship. Or put far more eloquently by Rowan Atkinson: https://youtu.be/BiqDZlAZygU

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