Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says Lewis Hamilton has decided not to back down from Max Verstappen if he “thinks that the corner is his”.
After Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen’s Italian Grand Prix collision, Toto Wolff said Max made a “tactical foul”. Asked if he still believed that, he said:
“The point is these two are racing for a drivers’ championship and you cannot expect them to have velvet gloves on.
“That is why we are going to see harsh moments like this I believe. Obviously, I am biased and looking at how the whole race panned out, sometimes you have to just bail out which Lewis did on lap one.
“Could Max have done it? He probably would have lost the position. I think it is very difficult and dangerous to comment with the bias you have and obviously cheering for your driver and your team.
“These two know what they do to have it under control and I guess we had a good chance to chase the McLarens that were there on merit, and score a bit more points.”
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The Austrian also added that it is up to Lewis and Max to decide if they want to have more collisions or not.
“I think they pretty much know what they do. In my opinion, if they both wanted to avoid collisions, we would have less collisions.
“If they don’t avoid collisions because they feel it’s right to not bail out or not give room then we will have more. We aren’t sitting in the cars. They also race each other very close now, which wasn’t the case in the past.
“I think the change of approach is that Lewis pretty much decided not to bail out anymore when he thinks that the corner is his. It needs two to tango, it needs two to understand each other on track.
“They are in the cars, we have no influence on the driving, they will know much better than us how the other one is racing.
“It’s interesting to watch,” concluded Wolff.