How Verstappen and Hamilton’s Imola clash sets the tone for F1’s 2021 title fight

There was plenty for Formula 1 fans to enjoy in last weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

The absent Tifosi willing on Charles Leclerc as he delivered a near faultless weekend. British motorsport fans enjoying Lando Norris and George Russell impressing yet again, with surely all fans erupting in relief when the latter and Valtteri Bottas were able to climb out of the wreckage of their enormous accident and engage in further theatrics in the gravel trap.

There was much for the various partisan fanbases to cheer and jeer – but for the neutral there was surely no better moment than Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton going wheel-to-wheel once again for the lead, this time clashing.

The pair’s lap one Tamburello coming together was a critical moment in the race and just possibly the 2021 title fight too. It made it two races in succession they have engaged in a direct battle for the lead, but this time there was a different outcome.

In Bahrain, Verstappen’s minor mistake cost him dearly. In Imola, the error came from Hamilton. But the world champion’s slip-up actually came, quite literally, before the pair arrived side-by-side into the track’s first real braking zone, after he’d made “just that bit of a mistake” in his start launch process and struggled to match the acceleration of the surging Red Bull cars behind.

Hamilton’s lack of momentum gave Verstappen the chance to get alongside and stopped the Mercedes driver from shutting the door to the inside run to Tamburello. To make amends, Hamilton braked later into the chicane to get his nose back in front as they turned in. But after ceding the inside line, Hamilton had left himself open to exactly what happened next, no matter how gamely he hung on.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12, on the opening lap

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“We went in to Turn 2 (Tamburello) of course side-by-side, but it’s difficult to expect the grip on the first lap,” explained Verstappen. “I also ended up a bit wider than I wanted and then Lewis was also there, but at one point these yellow sausages [are there]. Then I saw Lewis had to go over them.”

“I didn’t get a good start,” said Hamilton, when offering his perspective. “Max got a better start than me and then I think I was slightly ahead going into Turn 2, but I was basically avoiding us coming together. Max was just coming and coming and coming across. Of course, we had that touch and I had to use the exit – take those big kerbs – but I’m grateful I just got it through it and didn’t damage much more than the endplate.”

PLUS: How the Emilia Romagna GP result hinged on three crucial saves

Verstappen felt he had to go a bit wider than he wanted, his words perhaps covering accusations that he’d forced Hamilton off. This in any case is an argument that doesn’t stack up because of the timing of the incident – the first real corner of the first lap – and the specific circumstances (cold tyres, wet track). By clinging on on the outside, Hamilton left himself exposed to going over the kerbs, with a clash inevitable. It was a racing incident and a thrilling one at that.

After making contact in that fight for the lead, but within the limits of acceptability (particularly on the first lap), both now know where the line is and what the other is prepared to do

The Mercedes was slightly damaged in the contact – the front wing endplate’s footplate hanging loose before later falling off, plus the rest of the car being jolted over the brutal kerbs. That left Verstappen clear in the lead, apparently unaware there had even been contact, replying “I don’t think we touched” when Autosport asked for his perspective on the incident in the race’s aftermath. Hamilton had to check up and pick up speed again, his eventually futile chase to retake the lead just beginning.

Hamilton did report Verstappen had “pushed me right wide in Turn 1” over his team radio, but there was to be no public histrionics, no sense of bad blood from either camp after the race. The body language tone between the pair in the press conference afterwards was essentially the same as it generally has been in recent years – respectful yet unyielding, jovial but with an underlying edge.

After making contact in that fight for the lead, but within the limits of acceptability (particularly on the first lap), both now know where the line is and what the other is prepared to do. Hamilton has seen exactly how Verstappen will take the fight right up to and against the limit, while the young pretender knows the veteran world champion isn’t going to give up under any circumstances.

Lewis Hamilton congratulates Max Verstappen after the 2021 Emilia Romagna GP

Photo by: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Consider Hamilton’s “I’ve still got it” radio message as he returned to the pits after winning in Bahrain. Perhaps it was loaded with the uncertainty Hamilton has admitted to feeling about how long he can keep performing at F1’s highest level (after sealing the 2020 world title with his wet Turkey triumph he said, in the context of talks over a new Mercedes deal: “Naturally there are days when you think ‘what happens if you start making mistakes? What happens if you get worse all of a sudden, you don’t put in these great performances?”).

Perhaps that sense had been more so over the off-season given Bahrain represented his first win since contracting COVID-19, then missing his first race after an unbroken, 265-event run before making a subdued return to close out 2020. Perhaps it was in fact a recognition that Hamilton needed to give himself – that he could take on a young star and prevail, in a slower package as well.

Every way you look at it, the Hamilton vs Verstappen battle is loaded with significance for either party (and how disappointing it is that Leclerc is reduced to brilliant cameos in the background).

Bahrain was too small a dataset to be totally sure that Mercedes and Red Bull would be in a close title fight in 2021 – although the absence of any such multi-team scrap for the championship means getting overexcited at what that result suggested was understandable. But the Imola weekend began forming the early pattern.

Red Bull has the faster car and should have been 1-2 on the grid. But it seems it still has work to do to be entirely sure it can outlast Mercedes over a race distance given Verstappen’s struggles towards the end of the intermediates stint and the feeling that the Black Arrows’ tyre warm-up deficit across the Imola weekend meant it would be paid back with better tyre life as the race stints wore on.

If that is to be the full pattern for the season, then F1 fans should be rightly excited at the prospect of further wheel-to-wheel battles to come between two of the championship’s heavyweights – more so now they’ve seen just what they’re prepared to do.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 2nd position, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, and Lando Norris, McLaren, 3rd position, on the podium

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images