‘It’s just the nature of the track’ – Verstappen explains Hamilton clash in Spanish Grand Prix

Max Verstappen has offered his verdict on the near-miss with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap of the Spanish Grand Prix, which saw the Dutchman begrudgingly let his rival past after driving off track.

Just as Hamilton got ahead when the lights went out at the Madring, Verstappen cut the first turn and held onto his starting position of P3, provoking calls from the Briton to give the position back.

The Red Bull driver was adamant that Hamilton “almost shunted into me” and tried to resist instructions from the team to avoid a potential penalty, especially as he had also succeeded in passing Kimi Antonelli to take P2.

He soon gave in and allowed both Antonelli and Hamilton through, but quickly returned to the top three as Hamilton began to struggle with his brakes.

“It’s just a bit the nature of the track,” Verstappen said when questioned on the clash. “When you have that track layout with so much tarmac, people of course risk [going] for a move, and I saw what happened – Lewis clipped the kerb so he was going to run wide.

“I think if I would’ve stayed on the track, you touch and there’s a big risk of damage. I decided to drive next to the track, and then of course the team told me to give the position back, which I did. After that, I just tried to do my race.”

He was able to make the most of a Virtual Safety Car and limit the positions lost during his pit stop – something that McLaren’s Lando Norris couldn’t do due to the unfortunate timing, resulting in his eventual result of P3 while Verstappen improved to P2.

Although the four-time World Champion conceded that he didn’t have the performance to match either Norris or race winner Antonelli on his way to claiming his sixth podium of the season, he was satisfied with the weekend as a whole.

“Looking at the race pace, I think it’s a great result,” he said. “Of course, we know that Lando got unlucky with that VSC, so for us I think P2 is an incredible result because you could see how much Lando was catching me.”

He later added: “I think it was quite clear that Lando and Kimi were a lot faster. Once everyone was a little bit clear, it was again the same thing where Kimi was a bit faster than me, Lando was faster than all of us, but I could keep him quite easily behind me.”