Verstappen defends Hamilton after their visit to the stewards in Monaco

19:00, 24 May

Updated: 19:20, 24 May

byKada Sarkozi

In Q1, Max Verstappen was impeded by Lewis Hamilton. After the session, the Dutchman shared his verdict on the incident, explaining that it was not the Briton's fault.

During the first session, Hamilton got in the Red Bull driver's way after he was told by race engineer Riccardo Adami that Verstappen was on a slow lap.

The incident did not influence the outcome of Q1, but in the end, Hamilton did finish ahead of Verstappen in qualifying. Therefore, he can also gain a position if a penalty is applied.

"I don't know. I mean, honestly, it's not really interesting to think about," the defending world champion began to GPblog among others in the paddock..

Verstappen believes Hamilton was not at fault

Verstappen then explained that Hamilton cannot be blamed for what happened in Q1.

"Well at the time of course I was like what what is going on here, it was quite clear that there was a car in my way, but basically the team just told Lewis that I was suddenly driving slow. So then of course Lewis accelerates which is I think normal because he thinks that I'm on a slow lap, but I'm clearly not on a slow lap."

After the session, Hamilton did apologise to Verstappen as well.

Still, the Dutchman also thinks the stewards will give the seven-time world champion a penalty. "Of course I know that it's not his fault, but I even got a one-place grid penalty, not even impeding on a fast lap. So yeah, if he get away with that, I'm really surprised."

Max Verstappen in Qualifying in Monaco

Verstappen then underlined it would be very uncharacteristic of Hamilton to hold rivals up.

"It's not like I’m trying to get Lewis a penalty. It’s just the precedent of what they have been using in the stewards room. I know it’s the team’s fault, clearly, because Lewis is normally always quite correct with these things, like moving out of the way and no one really wants to impede anyone on purpose. So yeah, this was just unfortunate, but it happened," Verstappen concluded.

This article was written in collaboration with Sandy van Wijngaarden