The Australian Grand Prix was a race to remember. It had everything: action, drama, overtakes, and of course, Max Verstappen dominating a race. That being said, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the 2x champion. At the first of the three eventual starts, both Mercedes pipped Verstappen. Though George Russell got the Dutch lion into turn 1, the talk of the town was the move that Lewis Hamilton made on him.

Into turn 3, the Brit raced hard, and according to the stewards, fair. However, Verstappen felt that he was hard done by the 38-year-old. In his words, Hamilton squeezed him and ran him off the track. Though the officials didn’t make anything of it, Verstappen had a few things to say post-race.

Max Verstappen accuses Lewis Hamilton of dirty driving

After the race, Verstappen was visibly frustrated. Even though he cruised to a comfortable victory after all, he wasn’t too pleased with the conduct of his rival. His main gripe was that Hamilton went above and beyond the scope of the rules and unfairly grabbed P2 from the Dutch racing ace.

He was quoted by Metro UK as saying, “From my side, I tried to avoid contact. It’s quite clear in the rules what you’re allowed to do on the outside but clearly it’s not followed.”

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It’s been a while since Mercedes has been competitive. But even though Hamilton finished second, there’s a lot to be glad about for the Silver Arrows.

Lewis Hamilton hopes to catch up to Verstappen and Co. soon

If you’re a driver of Lewis Hamilton’s caliber, the only thing on your mind would be winning. That being said, with the advent of the newest era of F1 cars, Mercedes has generally not been troubling the Bulls too much. But this recent upturn of pace at Melbourne has the 7x champion beaming.

During FIA’s post-race press conference, he said, “Considering we’ve been down on performance, we’re clearly down on end-of-straight pace compared to the Red Bulls, for us to be up here fighting with Aston is just amazing at this point in the season. And we’ve just got to keep on fighting.”

“Big, big thank you to all the people back to the factory. Let’s keep pushing. We can close that gap. It’s going to be tough, but not impossible.”

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Where would you rank today’s Australian Grand Prix in your list of F1’s greatest races ever?