Max Verstappen and the two Mercedes drivers were involved in separate collisions as Formula 1’s 2024 Italian Grand Prix commenced, which explained the Red Bull driver’s call for a Lewis Hamilton penalty.
Verstappen had started seventh and behind the Mercedes pair on Sunday, with George Russell in the lead W15 actually lining up third and in a position to race the early leading McLarens and eventually winning Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.
But Russell “just got caught out by Oscar [Piastri's] braking point” at the first corner and locked up, then took to the escape road, from which he rejoined in the orbit of Hamilton (who had also had a brief collision with Carlos Sainz on the run to Turn 1) and Verstappen powering through the Curva Grande.
As they both shot past Russell, an analysis of the various onboard footage shows how Verstappen got a run on Hamilton and edged his nose alongside the Mercedes’ right-rear through the braking phase, when Hamilton drifted slightly right as the della Roggia chicane’s first apex approached.
Verstappen was squeezed on the outside line and the pair made light contact as they turned in.
Hamilton quickly said “I’ve been hit, by Max… right-rear”, while Verstappen complained “Lewis didn’t leave a car’s width” and later added “I got a penalty for that, so...”.
Before this, Verstappen’s momentary momentum stall meant and Russell’s better line through the first apex meant the latter’s front wheels got to level with the former’s rears, and as they traversed the second apex’s exit the Mercedes was pinched even as Russell braked with the space closing.
Verstappen’s left-rear then knocked off Russell’s right-side endplate, with the Briton only immediately then saying “Piastri just came across me in the braking zone” before asking Mercedes’ to check his damaged front wing as the first lap ended.
“I think the front wing is off,” he added.
Verstappen asked Red Bull to “check my left-rear tyre cause I touched a little bit I think” but was given the all-clear to continue, as Hamilton had also been.
Russell, however, “lost a huge amount of performance” due to his damage in the opening stint where he was dropped by Verstappen and then passed by Sergio Perez in the other RB20 before pitting to replace his front wing.
Russell ultimately recovered to beat Perez, but wound up 1.8s behind Verstappen at the race’s end, with Hamilton 15.1s further ahead – the trio having all completed two-stoppers along with the defeated McLaren cars further ahead.
When asked if he was happy with Hamilton’s driving post-race, Verstappen replied: “Probably lap one, you're focusing on the cars ahead, not looking in the mirrors as well.”
“That's my only explanation,” he added of an incident that was not shown during the race’s live broadcast due to the need to cover the intra-McLaren fight ahead at the della Roggia on lap one, then the series of collisions in the early laps involving Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg and the RB drivers.
Afterwards, Mercedes’ director of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin, reflected on how Russell’s damage in the second Verstappen collision of the Silver Arrows squad’s Monza race “led to an early and long stop”.
He continued: “We could have potentially gained a place on Verstappen if we had committed to the one-stop but ultimately the opening lap damage was the bigger cost.”
