LEW ARE YA?
Hamilton psychs out Max
LEWIS HAMILTON has been running background checks on Max Verstappen in a bid to gain the advantage in their fierce world title battle.
Back-to-back wins have seen Hamilton cut the gap to his Red Bull rival to eight points with two races to go.
But he is not just relying on his raw pace as he pursues an eighth drivers’ championship.
“Now that I’m older, I look a little bit deeper into their character and a bit of their background, upbringing,” he said.
“Our upbringing is why we act out the way we do and behave the way we do, good or bad.
“So I try to understand those so I can have more appreciation ■ of who that character is I am racing with.”
The conclusion Hamilton has drawn seems to be that he is up against a driver who will give no quarter, as their many run-ins this season have demonstrated. “You just have to be very, very wary – more wary than ever before,” said the Mercedes star. “So you always have to be ready to avoid a collision at all costs, (even) if it means going wide, because you want to see the end of the race, right?
“If you’re stubborn and you hold your ground, you’re going to crash.
“I am not too big or too successful to have to back out to fight another day. I know that is sometimes the route you have to take.
You have to be the smarter one.”
The pair have collided at the British and Italian GPs this season, Hamilton getting the blame at Silverstone and Verstappen at Monza.
More recently, Verstappen
(inset) escaped censure for his elbows out move in Brazil which forced Hamilton to take evasive action. But it is nothing the 36-year-old has not seen before.
Hamilton told the BBC: “I’ve been doing this a long time so it’s not the first time I’ve been faced with a driver that’s been good and bad in certain ways and I think I’m in just a much better position to be able to handle that, to deal with that.”