
Red Bull Racing advisor, Dr Helmut Marko says that he “is sorry” regarding his early assessment of Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen’s collision at the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was “obviously not correct”.
F1 title rivals Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton collided in the dramatic Saudi Arabian Grand GP. Following number of chaotic incidents Hamilton has won the race to move level on points with Verstappen ahead of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this weekend.
Hamilton got a great pace advantage from sector two and three long stint at Jeddah Circuit – following the first red flag session Verstappen received the advantage and start ahead of the Brit. But the Dutch man was extremely defended when the Hamilton attacks.
After the second extreme defending action, Verstappen was ordered to allow pass Hamilton through after he pushed his title rival wide as he looked to make a move around the outside in the closing stages of the race. Both aggressive aces collided in a dramatic incident which led Hamilton to accuse Verstappen of driving “over the limit”.
Marko withdraw his original statements. “At the time of the television interviews, I passed on exactly the information I had received from the engineers beforehand,” he told F1 Insider. “That was obviously not correct, so I’m sorry for that.”
“Hopefully the sad chapter of Saudi Arabia is now closed. In any case, we are only looking forward. We want to win in Abu Dhabi and thus win the title. We will do everything for that, but we will not start unfair actions.”
“We already had the pace in Saudi Arabia to keep up with Hamilton. The Yas Marina circuit should suit us better in that respect.”
There have been several changes to the Yas Marina Circuit as F1 heads to Abu Dhabi for the final race of what has been the most interesting season in F1 history. Verstappen, although level on 369.5 points, is ahead as he has more race wins (9) than Hamilton (8).