The Verstappen vs Hamilton's close call from a Red Bull's insider perspective
Max Verstappen faced a challenging weekend at the Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race before the summer break. The Dutchman could do no better than ninth place and was summoned to the stewards over a post-race incident with Lewis Hamilton. Stephen Knowles, Red Bull’s Head of Sporting, has commented on the situation.
Knowles, who attended the meeting with the stewards alongside Max Verstappen at the end of the Hungarian GP, was present at the podcast of The Inside Track on YouTube.
He was asked what his opinion was about the incident: ''It was an interesting one because I think no one was really that sure what it was, other than it's a manoeuvre into a corner that is pretty high speed.''
''You don't generally see a lot of overtakes there. And it didn't help that all the camera angles that were available at the time were pretty unhelpful. It was just unfortunate timing, I think, from the director.''
''We normally have the majority of the time, we have the camera from the roll hoop that sits above the driver's helmet down, which gives you a really good view of what what's happening on both sides of the cars.''
Knowles then explained why this could have been to Verstappen's disadvantage: ''On Max's car, it went to the front wing camera, which is kind of behind the front wing just at the exact wrong time.''
''Also the the helicopter shot, the cars happened to pass by some trees at the critical moment as well. So I think no one was really entirely sure what happened, whether there was contact or what, we couldn't see any.''
''I think race control looked at it, probably couldn't decide whether there should be any action taken. It could either have been causing a collision or forcing Lewis off track. There were the possibilities. So that's what we went into talk about.''
Knowles full of praise for Verstappen
This site previously reported on Knowles’ working relationship with Verstappen, noting that he values the driver’s communication style. Verstappen was described as direct and highly knowledgeable about the sporting regulations. In the end, he faced no penalty for the incident with Hamilton in Hungary.
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