2021 saw the birth of a new rivalry in Formula One. Lewis Hamilton was riding on the back of 4 consecutive title wins. Then emerged a new challenger on the block- Max Verstappen.

Red Bull golden boy, Max Verstappen, dethroned Lewis Hamilton to take his first championship home. The title race heated up and remained close throughout the season until the final race. Recently, Red Bull boss Christian Horner appeared on Beyond The Grid podcast and recalled how the season panned out, among other things. He also talked about Max and Lewis’ infamous first lap crash at Silverstone.

Horner on Max Verstappen’s 2021 rivalry with Lewis Hamilton

On the podcast, Christian Horner talked about how Hamilton had an advantage over other drivers and how that advantage did not work against Verstappen. He said that with every other car, Hamilton would pass them in a lap or a lap and a half. However, he wasn’t able to pass Max in 30-odd laps.

Praising Verstappen’s resilience and his style of driving, he said, “for me, that was a “Titanic” drive by Max”. He continued by saying that Verstappen was fighting for the World Championship and he may have been hard racing, but it was fair racing.

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After this, the conversation progressed to the controversial crash that happened at the Copse corner during the British Grand Prix.

Christian Horner on Max Verstappen and Hamilton’s 2021 Silverstone crash

Hamilton had taken the pole position in the qualifying. However, he lost to Verstappen in the sprint race. The title race was already heating up. With the British GP being Hamiltons’ home race, sparks were sure to fly. All it took was the first lap. Hamilton and Verstappen crashed at the Copse corner with Verstappen’s car being wrecked. Hamilton continued the race with a 10-second stop-and-go time penalty. Despite this, Hamilton went on to win the race.

Horner was asked whether the two drivers were trying to get into each other’s heads. Horner said that it was more into Hamilton’s head as he was the 7-time world champion. He had everything to lose. Max, on the other hand, was this young kid who had everything to win. Continuing, he said, “some of his overtaking last year was stunning and you felt that started to rattle Lewis”. ” I think, you know, we definitely saw after Lewis qualified on pole at Silverstone and Max just won the sprint race. You saw Lewis was, you know, he’s a bit broken after sprint race”. 

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Controversies aside, it was one of the best seasons F1 fans got to witness, with the title race going right down to the wire. We just hope that this rivalry maintains its fierceness for years to come and that we get to witness more such title fights.