Lewis Hamilton had his closest brush with death on a Formula One track on Sunday after crashing with title rival Max Verstappen during the Italian Grand Prix.
Verstappen’s Red Bull landed on top of Hamilton’s Mercedes in Monza, with the rear right tyre striking the world champion on his helmet, the impact greatly reduced by the halo head protection device which was credited with saving his life.
The pair were racing wheel-to-wheel through turn one and two, with Hamilton, 36, slightly ahead and on the racing line. As the gap on the track closed, Verstappen, 23, was pushed wide and over a kerb, which launched his Red Bull into the air, landing on his rival.
“I feel very, very fortunate today — thank God for the halo,” Hamilton said. “That ultimately, I think, saved me and saved my neck.”
He added: “I don’t think I have ever been hit on the head by a car before and it is quite a shock for me.
“I have been racing for a long, long time and I am so, so grateful I am still here and feel incredibly blessed that someone was watching over me today.”
The seven-time world champion suffered neck pain, which was getting increasingly worse last night, he said, as the adrenaline wore off. He said that he would seek specialist help before the next race in two weeks in Russia.
“I will probably need to see a specialist to make sure I’m good for the next race because it is getting tighter and tighter. But I’ll live,” he said.
Verstappen walked away from his car, uninjured. The race stewards found him “predominantly to blame” for the accident and assessed a three-place grid penalty for the September 26 Russian Grand Prix.
He disagreed with the penalty.
“Today was very unfortunate,” the Dutch driver tweeted. “The incident could have been avoided if I had been left enough space to make the corner. You need two people to make that work and I feel I was squeezed out of it. When racing each other, these things can happen, unfortunately.”
Hamilton has been vocal on his view of Verstappen’s driving style in the past, especially his opinion that the driver, 13 years his junior, rarely, if ever, concedes a corner. Clearly stunned from the incident, Hamilton said he had not yet decided if he would have a proper sit-down with Verstappen to ensure there are no more incidents on track.
Formula One’s governing body will investigate the crash because it was “unusual”, according to race director Michael Masi.
The Australian said that although the collision was relatively low-speed, the FIA’s safety experts would still take a look.
“Incidents that are different, so it’s not necessarily high G impacts or anything like that, but are unusual, we do look at,” said Masi.
“Our safety department does look at them in detail, investigate and see what we can learn and what we can improve for the future. That’s how we have a whole lot of the safety features that we have today, and will continue to evolve into the future.
“We are already collecting all of the data, so we have all of the information and that will all go to our safety department together with any photographs and anything else we have along the way.”
