Despite X Rated Complaints, Lewis Hamilton Comes Up Trumps in Battle With Max Verstappen Over Crucial FIA Decision

As entertaining and thrilling as the Australian GP was, it had its fair share of controversies. Those started right from lights out when Max Verstappen lost two places to Mercedes duo George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Right from that moment, the Dutchman knew that this race would take an extra bit of effort from him to win it. Resultantly, he lodged two formal complaints against Hamilton during the course of the race. The FIA has now delivered its verdict on both those issues post-race and found the Briton in clean waters.

Verstappen managed to get a clean start but Russell carried more pace in the drag race to Turn 1. The younger Mercedes driver overtook him while Hamilton, who started in P3, was already on his tail. A few more meters further, the senior Briton almost came wheel to wheel with Max into Turn 3. Going wide and losing the position, he complained that Lewis pushed him wide.

Soon enough, another incident left the Dutchman complaining to his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase. As the drivers moved behind the safety car, Hamilton in an attempt to back up the grid, took a distance of more than 10 car lengths behind the safety car. This did not please Max. However, not only did FIA reject his first objection, but also the second one, explaining that the race leader is allowed to “dictate the pace and, if necessary, fall more than 10 lengths behind it.”

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The stewards’ inaction bothered Verstappen too much despite the fact that he eventually overtook Lewis to take the race lead and won the race after multiple stops and restarts.

Max Verstappen’s snarky comments on Lewis Hamilton post-race

When Hamilton dived on the inside of Verstappen in Turn 3, he wasn’t ahead of him when they reached the apex. While the Dutchman complained of being pushed, neither David Croft nor Jenson Button in the commentary box felt that was the case. Both believed that because the Briton was behind, he couldn’t have forced his rival to go wide. The race winner, however, clearly did not feel that way.

Reacting to the incident post-race, he said, “From my side, I just tried to avoid the contact.”

“It’s quite clear in the rules what you’re allowed to do now in the outside, but clearly it’s not followed. But that’s okay, we had good pace and passed them anyway. It’s something for the next races to take into account.”

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Do you think the 7x champion deserved a penalty for any of the two incidents?