Hamilton ‘not giving any energy’ to Verstappen F1 incident ahead of Qatar

Verstappen and Hamilton were embroiled in yet another titanic battle for the victory last time out in Brazil.

The moment of controversy occurred on Lap 48 when Verstappen defended aggressively into Turn 4, pushing his rival off the track while taking to the run-off himself.

The incident wasn’t investigated by the stewards but subsequent footage was released by F1 on Tuesday, leading Mercedes to ask for an official review of the incident.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s inaugural race in Losail, Hamilton didn’t want to give his opinion on the incident with Verstappen despite seeing the Red Bull driver’s onboard footage.

“I won, that’s how I reflect on it,” he said. “It was a good weekend [in Brazil]. It was a difficult day. It was just such a difficult weekend and just a lot of emotions but we got there, we didn’t give up. We stayed united as a team and we got the result that we had dreamed of. I think the team fully deserved it.

“Honestly it’s not something that I really want to dive too much more into. I didn’t mean I have looked at all the different angles, I have seen the onboard footage for example that came out.

“As I said, last race I was just trying to focus on the fact that we did something that was quite remarkable which wasn’t expected. Just trying not to focus on any negatives. So right now I think the team I know are in discussion at this point so I am just leaving them to it.

“I have just been focusing, sitting with Bono and the engineers. We’ve got to really start this weekend [well], got to make sure we bring the fight to them.”

Mercedes met with the FIA at 5pm local time (2pm GMT) to discuss the incident and Hamilton admitted that he’s left his team to deal with the review rather than getting involved himself.

“I’ve not really been a part of it,” Hamilton added. “Of course I’m aware of it and I’m fully supportive of my team, but as I said, I literally just tried to give all my energy to this weekend and making sure we arrive and hit the ground running.

“I have no idea where they are going with the discussion or what could be the outcome, I’ve just not given it any energy at all.”

Hamilton trails Verstappen by 14 points in the drivers’ championship with three rounds to go.