Max Verstappen reacts to Lewis Hamilton block incident: “It’s more the team’s fault”

Max Verstappen has blamed Ferrari, rather than Lewis Hamilton, for their incident in qualifying for the F1 Monaco Grand Prix.

Hamilton was on a slow lap on the run up the hill in the first sector in Q1

Ferrari race engineer Riccardo Adami told him that Verstappen was three seconds behind and on a “slow lap.”

Verstappen was, in fact, on a fast lap but was impeded by Hamilton.

Hamilton has been hit with a three-place grid penalty for Sunday's race following the stewards' investigation. 

The 2021 F1 title rivals were seen in parc ferme talking about it after qualifying.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the session, Verstappen didn’t blame Hamilton for the incident.

“At the time you see the car blocking you when you’re there at high-speed it’s not nice let’s say it like that,” Verstappen said.

“I saw that the team told him I was driving slow when I was clearly driving fast. It’s not Lewis’ fault. I quickly chatted to him about it. It’s very simple but of course it can’t happen. That’s the team’s mistake.

“If you look at the history of things, yes, but again it’s more the team’s fault but unfortunately in qualifying they’re normally quite strict with these things.”

Verstappen blames Red Bull’s low-speed weakness

It was a disappointing qualifying session for Verstappen and Red Bull.

Verstappen is set to start Sunday’s race from fifth on the grid after qualifying over 0.7s off McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Verstappen blamed Red Bull’s weakness in slow-speed corners for their underwhelming qualifying display.

“Mainly in the middle sector,” Verstappen added. “It’s all the low-speed, mechanical grip corners we just didn’t have it. I couldn’t find more lap time compared to practice really.

“Every time I had to ride a kerb or throw up a wheel in a cambered corner it didn’t grip up and it just meant we had issues. As soon as I went out in qualifying and I saw the lap time progression I knew we were not in that fight.”

When asked if it was a surprise, he said: “Not really. I know that our car is not very good in low-speed anyway. I think this year already in qualifying it’s always been close between a lot of cars.

“If you’re lacking in feeling or balance in those low-speed corners that’s not happening.”