Adamant there’s no bias involved, just an opinion on the sport he “loves”, Damon Hill questions how much “damage” Max Verstappen is doing to his reputation with antics such as Austria.
Verstappen was involved in a fierce battle with Lando Norris for the lead at the Austrian Grand Prix where the McLaren driver accused his Dutch rival of moving under braking.
Are Max Verstappen’s antics damaging his reputation?
Their battle ended on lap 64 when they came together as Norris tried to pass Verstappen around the outside into the braking zone at Turn 3 and Verstappen shut the door on the Briton.
Moving to the left, the cars collided, resulting in rear-wheel punctures that put Norris out of the race while Verstappen pitted for fresh rubber before finishing the race in fifth place.
The Red Bull driver was hit with a 10-second penalty with one of the Austrian stewards, Johnny Herbert, calling the move to the left “deliberate” and meant to “intimidate” Norris.
1996 World Champion questions “how much damage” Verstappen’s antics are doing to his reputation as a driver.
“I think that the tragedy of this is,” he told the Sky Sports F1 podcast, “that when you have a driver, and I think Andrea Stella also alluded to this, when you have a driver who is brilliantly talented, he’s a nice guy, Max is a nice guy let’s get this absolutely clear…
“This is not a British fans versus Dutch fans thing at all. Because we’re British, we’re accused of being biased and this is an opinion that I’m going to express based on the fact that I love this sport that has given me so much, and I want to see it played out in a sporting way – hard but fair.
“I think the trouble is when you’ve got someone like Max who’s come up by winning, by being ruthless, which he clearly – he is very, very, and everyone knows if you go for a pass on Max for a race win he’s going to try and biff you – it’s just gonna happen.
“Now, the question is, how much damage is that doing to his long-term reputation as a driver.”
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The former F1 driver turned pundit believes the FIA are in part to blame for as “nothing firm enough is done” to curtail the antics.
Told that Verstappen doesn’t care about his reputation, Hill added: “I think that’s the point. He doesn’t care now because it works.
“Because on balance, he’ll come out on top. And you can and there is a lot of the calculation that goes into some teams and drivers’ approach to motor racing. There’s a calculation on balance, I’ll lose some, but I’ll win some or win more than I lose.
“And the evidence is that they’re right, because nothing’s done. So nothing firm enough is done to prevent so they’ll carry on doing it.
“So I think that’s where we’re at now, a great driver, potentially going to go down in history as a little bit too feisty when it comes to defending. I would hate for that to happen.
“I would love to see great drivers have an impeccable reputation. You can go back and I’m gonna sound very boring, but drivers of the past didn’t get into that sort of thing.
“Maybe it’s because it was more dangerous. If you wheel banged with people, then the consequences were dire. So you can say that Fangio or Stewart or Lauda, Prost, maybe didn’t do that sort of thing.
“And then along comes Ayrton, much more aggressive. He was the person who was challenged by Jackie Stewart as being too involved in accidents and having had more accidents and there was that famous interview where he calls him Stewart, ‘you should know Stewart’. Of course that’s the issue at stake.
“I think here we’re seeing in the long line of great drivers that it’s not down to the drivers, it’s not down to the teams, it’s down to the FIA to do something about, it’s down to the people who referee the sport to make sure they’re firm enough. And I think that there for some reason that’s where that’s where it started to slide.”
Verstappen took the chequered flag in fifth place and despite his 10-second time penalty for being predominantly to blame for the collision, it did nothing to change his finishing points or the 10 points he scored.
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