{"id":223189,"date":"2025-06-29T05:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T05:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/223189\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T05:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T05:28:14","slug":"lewis-hamilton-lands-brutal-max-verstappen-dig-over-bumping-into-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/223189\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton lands brutal Max Verstappen dig over ‘bumping into people’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton has quipped that he \u201cwon\u2019t be bumping into anybody\u201d at the start of the Austrian Grand Prix as Max Verstappen \u201cisn\u2019t up there\u201d at the front.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It comes just weeks after Verstappen, the Red Bull driver and reigning four-time World Champion, was involved in an ugly collision with George Russell\u2019s Mercedes in Spain.<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton makes Max Verstappen quip ahead of Austrian Grand Prix<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/p>\n

Hamilton enjoyed one of his strongest qualifying sessions so far with Ferrari on Saturday in Austria to secure fourth on the grid, putting himself within a tenth of team-mate Charles Leclerc, who will start second.<\/p>\n

The seven-time World Champion\u2019s result came on the weekend Ferrari introduced a new floor to the SF-25 car<\/a> with the hope of getting its disappointing campaign back on track.<\/p>\n

Verstappen, a five-time winner at the Red Bull Ring, was left stranded in seventh after yellow flags for Pierre Gasly\u2019s spinning Alpine compromised his final Q3 lap.<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton vs Charles Leclerc: Ferrari head-to-head scores for F1 2025<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates<\/a><\/p>\n

The Red Bull driver remains on the brink of a one-race ban<\/a> after making contact with Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix, where he appeared to deliberately make contact with the Mercedes, earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Two penalty points are set to be wiped from Verstappen\u2019s tally on Monday, when his clash with McLaren driver Lando Norris in last year\u2019s Austrian Grand Prix falls out of his 12-month window.<\/p>\n

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com after qualifying in Austria, Hamilton could not resist making a quip at Verstappen\u2019s expense as he looked ahead to the start.<\/p>\n

Put to him that the Austrian GP tends to be a race in which \u201cpeople bump into each other\u201d fighting over the lead, Hamilton joked: \u201cMax isn\u2019t up there, so\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t be bumping into anybody, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamilton\u2019s comment comes after Russell quipped that he would use Verstappen\u2019s disciplinary situation to his advantage<\/a> after qualifying in Canada \u2013 a comment Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, took issue with<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hamilton\u2019s fine qualifying result came after he struggled in Friday practice at the Red Bull Ring, telling his Ferrari race engineer Riccardo Adami over team radio at one stage during FP2: \u201cFor some reason I\u2019ve just got no pace, mate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old revealed that the team\u2019s changes overnight were key to his turnaround, describing Austria as his most efficient qualifying session since he joined Ferrari.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cDefinitely made some progress overnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was much happier with car in P3 and the direction we went, I think, has been really positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think edging closer in terms of performance to Charles, who\u2019s really, really used to the Ferrari. He hardly ever changes it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think that\u2019s real positive. I think also I had more time in the lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was nearly three tenths up going into Turn 6 and I had a massive snap going in and then I came across the line 0.6s up, so that would have put me second.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there\u2019s positives in it, for sure, and I think operationally the team did a really great job today.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the best qualifying process operationally that we\u2019ve done, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari from PlanetF1.com<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Lewis Hamilton news<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Ferrari news<\/a><\/p>\n

Pressed on the impact of Ferrari\u2019s revised floor, he added: \u201cIt definitely helped to extract more from the floors this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really small step.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s degradation in the floors, so a new floor is always a little bit better. And then on top of that, the step of improvement in performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m really thankful to the team for back at the factory for the work they\u2019ve put in to make it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0FIA announces George Russell decision after Austrian Grand Prix investigation<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton has quipped that he \u201cwon\u2019t be bumping into anybody\u201d at the start of the Austrian Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[88064,4199,997,707,4200,225,998,1073,12,226,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-223189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-austrian-grand-prix","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-ferrari","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-home-page","14":"tag-lewis-hamilton","15":"tag-max-verstappen","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-red-bull","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114765005046713694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}