Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton have collided three times this season. When the world championship decision in the last race there is a threat of a scandal that could permanently damage the exciting fight for the Formula 1 title. When it comes to Verstappen like Michael Schumacher 1997.
Jerez, a Sunday in October 1997. Formula 1 has come to Andalusia for its season finale, Michael Schumacher is one point ahead of Jacques Villeneuve in the European Grand Prix. The Canadian secured pole position in a qualifying that is still unique today – Villeneuve, Schumacher and Heinz-Harald Frentzen drive exactly the same time to a thousandth of a second – but he loses the start of the race and falls behind in second place on the way into the first corner Schumacher back.
On the 48th of 69 laps, Villeneuve caught up with the Ferrari driver and tried to overtake inside in a right-hand bend. Schumacher suddenly jerks to the right, hits the left side of the Williams with his right front tire, slips into the gravel and is eliminated. Villeneuve steers his damaged car across the finish line in third place and is world champion. The world federation FIA ruled shortly thereafter that Schumacher had intentionally caused the collision and disqualified him from the drivers’ championship. A British newspaper writes on behalf of the public perception of Schumacher that he gambled away “the last remainder of his reputation as a fair sportsman” in the final of the 1997 season.
Many people who keep up with Formula 1 feel reminded of the events of this memorable Sunday 24 years ago this week. This is not the first time that Max Verstappen has been compared to Schumacher, so far it has mostly been about appreciative parallels. The seemingly endless ambition to get everything out of the car. The prophecy after the first race that a “future world champion” was sitting in the cockpit. The ability to dominate in the rain when, in the opinion of the experts, it shows a pilot’s true class.
Monza, Silverstone, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi?
However, Schumacher’s unique and outstanding career not only includes 68 pole positions, 91 race wins and seven world championship titles, but also controversies. The collision with World Cup rival Damon Hill in Adelaide 1994, the Rascasse affair in Monaco 2006.
Jerez 1997 was a low point, which Schumacher called a “mistake” a few days later. He “watched the repetitions for a few hours and only then understood what happened there”. An insight that emerges these days after the Escalation in Round 37 of the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix also some would wish from Verstappen.
“Where else does that lead?” Asked him “Telegraaf” from the Dutch home of the world championship leader in view of the braking maneuver through which Lewis Hamilton crashed into the rear of Verstappen’s Red Bull and visibly damaged the front wing. The fact that the British defending champion then drove past Verstappen to victory and the fastest race lap despite the demolished car was remarkable on the one hand and ensured that the two rivals each with 369.5 points in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (Sunday, 3 p.m. / Sky and in the live ticker at ntv.de) walk. With a slight advantage for Verstappen, who, despite having a tie, is the only one to run first because he has won nine Grand Prix of the year and thus one more than the Mercedes driver.
The concern, not only at “Telegraaf”, is that the outstanding season – five times the lead changed in the drivers’ championship, for the first time since 1974 two drivers are tied on points before the finale – will come to an unworthy end. Then namely when Verstappen drives “over the limit” again in Abu Dhabi, as Hamilton accused him of the accident last Sunday. It was the third collision between the two exceptional drivers this year. At Silverstone, Hamilton won despite a resulting ten-second penalty while Verstappen hit the tire wall at almost 300 kilometers per hour and had to be treated briefly in hospital.
“Nobody can afford that”
Both retired in Monza, there were tire marks from Verstappen’s Red Bull on Hamilton’s helmet and Formula 1 took a deep breath that the Halo system has been protecting the drivers’ heads since the 2018 season. “The halo saved his life”said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff about Hamilton, on whose Mercedes Verstappen’s car had come to a standstill. Both were eliminated, for the Dutchman, as the culprit, there was a transfer back to the starting line-up for the next race and penalty points. In Jeddah, Verstappen got away with a subsequent ten-second penalty that no longer changed the race result.
Even before the violent contact on lap 37, the opponents had come very close, especially at the end of the start-finish straight. There, Verstappen had also received a five-second penalty for maneuvering too hard against Hamilton. Who, in turn, considers himself to be the one whose prudence and willingness to compromise it is thanks to that there have only been three clashes this season. “I definitely have the feeling that there were situations where that was the case,” he said in Saudi Arabia, and also provided an explanation as to why: “It doesn’t matter to him if we don’t finish. “
Because in the World Cup final that follows, Hamilton has to score points and finish before Verstappen in order to become the sole record champion with his eighth World Championship. A title that the 36-year-old currently shares with Michael Schumacher. On the other hand, it would be enough for Verstappen, who is twelve years his junior, if the last race for the two World Cup rivals ends like the Grand Prix in Monza: with a joint retirement. Then he would be the first Dutchman on the Formula 1 throne, the first non-Mercedes world champion in the hybrid era, the second Red Bull champion after Sebastian Vettel’s four-fold triumph between 2010 and 2013.
The hope is, there is seldom agreement between Red Bull and Mercedes, a fair season finale. “I don’t think it will escalate,” said Toto Wolff in Jeddah. “Nobody can afford to come up with a result that wasn’t on the track.” Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko also emphasized that the team would “do everything for the title, but not take any unfair actions”. So that Abu Dhabi 2021 does not end like Jerez 1997. Especially since race director Michael Masi made it unusually clear in his notes to the drivers that a subsequent disqualification is also conceivable, as happened to Schumacher 24 years ago.