Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, more tension: what F1 has discovered

One year later, here they are again.

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are back, along with all of Formula 1, at that Yas Marina circuit where also in 2022 as in 2021 the season calendar includes the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that closes the championship. A year ago that was the scene of the fateful last lap that gave the title to Red Bull’s Dutchman, unlike this Sunday. Yet a little déjà vu played out between him and his Mercedes rival.

As Formula 1’s social accounts discovered a few hours after Saturday’s qualifying, in fact, the two contenders for the 2021 title found themselves in a tense situation during Q1 as well, again spaced a few meters apart. The same ones that helped decide the rainbow duel with Hamilton in Verstappen’s favor. The whole thing was later released in a clip showing the behavior of the two from inside their cars.

Indeed, the first tranche of qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was marked by dense traffic in the last sector of Yas Marina, with drivers queued up just before launching for their timed lap. This also happened to Verstappen and Hamilton, who moreover found themselves one behind the other in that order. “There’s a lot of traffic,” the Englishman complained over the radio to the Mercedes box. “Unbelievable,” the Red Bull driver said instead, chuckling with his engineers.

Definitely more nervous Hamilton behind him, so much so that Verstappen was dryly told, “Just start with your lap. Get a good gap, try to gain as much as you can. And let them pass, let them go.” Behind him, however, something was about to happen.

With the cars practically stationary before the last corner, in fact, Hamilton broke ranks and pulled ahead of Verstappen. This is exactly the same spot where in 2021 he gave the rip of the restart after the last Safety Car, insufficient, however, to give him his eighth world title. “Let him go, let him start,” the Red Bull team reiterated in this case to avoid any duels, which are as useless as they are harmful in a qualifying. Impossible, however, not to think of what happened in the same meters the last time the two champions faced them standing so close to each other.