Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo has defended his former teammate Max Verstappen over claims he failed to check on the welfare of Lewis Hamilton after their Italian Grand Prix crash.
The world championship rivals were eliminated after they collided at the first chicane, with the Red Bull climbing over the top of the Mercedes. Only the halo device saved Hamilton from serious injury, or even worse, with Verstappen’s right rear tyre coming down on his helmet.
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Verstappen was heavily criticised for seemingly walking away from the collision without checking on Hamilton’s condition, a move that Hamilton labelled as “surprising”.
“If it weren’t for the halo, Lewis could have died,” former world champion Jackie Stewart said last week.
“Not even to go to see Hamilton after a serious accident when you have just driven over the top of the guy is something I don’t really understand.”
But Red Bull team boss Christian Horner pointed to the fact Hamilton was trying to reverse his car out from underneath Verstappen’s as proof the seven-time champion was perfectly OK.
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“Even the medical car didn’t see the need to deploy,” Horner said.
It’s the second potentially serious crash between Hamilton and Verstappen this season, after Verstappen was sent into the tyre barriers on the opening lap at Silverstone, suffering a 51g impact with the wall.
Ricciardo, who was teammates with Verstappen from 2016-2018, says the 23-year-old wouldn’t have walked away from the Monza crash if he felt there was a chance Hamilton was hurt.
“I know Max, we were teammates for a few years,” Ricciardo told the Pardon My Take podcast.
“That’s him, he is a competitor, he’ll leave it on the track and that’s it. I guess he still maybe was carrying a bit of anger or a little bit of frustration from Silverstone. Maybe that’s why he just said, ‘stuff this’, and walked away.
“I saw him go over his head but then stopped a bit more forward. I think where Lewis was trying to reverse and get out, maybe Max saw that and thought, ‘OK Lewis is fine’, but I don’t know.
“If we go through an accident and we know the other driver was injured, I’m 100 per cent sure we would all try to help, we wouldn’t just turn our backs.”
Verstappen received a three place grid penalty after stewards judged he was “predominantly” at fault.
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