F1 News
Conflict between Hamilton and Verstappen "very volatile landmine" says Hill
- GPblog.com
The rivalry between Mercedes and Red Bull Racing has been growing from day one of the 2021 season but came to an apotheosis after Lewis Hamilton sent his new rival Max Verstappen hard into the tyre pile at Silverstone. It seems that a new legendary battle between two titans has been born, and so comparisons with Schumacher and Senna or Senna and Prost are now commonly made.
Landmine
In the F1 Nations Podcast, Damon Hill at least thinks the rivalry between Verstappen and Hamilton has all the ingredients to become classic. "The conflict between Lewis and Max has created a very volatile landmine in the sport. The rivalry we are seeing is the changing of the guard for the future of the sport."
The ex-World Champion continued, "Lewis is hanging on at the end of his career, whereas Max wants to go on and win world championships. Lewis definitely has the mentality of: 'I want to stay and win even more and put the record further out of reach.' But he still hasn't cracked Schumacher's total. This is what's going on in the heads of these drivers. This is the clash we see. We see a man who won't let go, who won't give up on a world title because it's the last icing on the cake. And Max is going to try and stop him."
Schumacher vs Senna
So the Brit, who reports for Sky Sports F1 today, draws what he sees as an obvious comparison: "And that's where we saw Michael Schumacher coming on the trail of Ayrton Senna in '94. It's great when you can achieve dominance, but there's always someone new coming up. That's worth fighting for, but you know time is against you. A new era will be someone else. And actually letting go of your position, your identity as the man, is pretty hard."