Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton drove in a way that directly put Max Verstappen’s life at risk, as the two collided dramatically on the opening lap of the British Grand Prix.
Verstappen, who started on pole, had the weaker of the starts off the line as Hamilton chased him down from second place to try and gain control of the race.
The Dutchman defended hard as the pair entered Turn Nine, Copse Corner, with Verstappen on the outside of the track.
The pair tangled as Verstappen’s right rear tyre made contact with Hamilton’s front left, sending the 23-year-old spinning across the gravel and directly into the tyre wall.
The Red Bull driver clambered out of the car, visibly winded from the shunt, and was transferred for further checks at a local hospital, before being discharged later that evening with no major injuries.
Hamilton was subsequently handed a ten-second time penalty for causing a collision, taken during his pit-stop, before he stormed his way back up the field to take victory for Mercedes in front of his home crowd, with the crash a firm topic of discussion in the aftermath.
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“Therefore we’ve had big points losses in the past, and today we scored big points. So that is always balancing itself out.
“I think that if that would have been a low or mid-speed corner, then it wouldn’t have been a big debate, obviously, or what the consequence of that [whether] a five or 10-second penalty,” said Wolff. “But it was a high-speed impact.
“It is a corner that takes lots of guts to even take flat alone. And when two cars are trying to drive through it they need to leave each other space in order to make it through the corner.
“And that wasn’t the case and the stewards deemed 10 seconds as appropriate, I guess because both drivers were part of the accident, not one alone, it’s always much more nuanced.”
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