What Max Verstappen told Lewis Hamilton after Monaco qualifying clash

Max Verstappen has revealed what he told Lewis Hamilton after the F1 champions nearly came to blows during qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.

In a thrilling and chaotic qualifying session, it was Lando Norris who took the all-important pole position, narrowly beating home favourite Charles Leclerc in his Ferrari.

Norris’ McLaren teammate and main championship rival Oscar Piastri will start Sunday’s race in third, with Hamilton fourth and Verstappen fifth.

But the British Ferrari driver, who heavily crashed his car in the final minutes of practice, is under investigation after impeding his Red Bull rival during the first qualifying session

Hamilton failed to move out of the way for the fast-approaching Verstappen at turn three, forcing the Dutchman to abort his flying lap and prompting a sweary outburst.

‘F*** whoa! Mate! F*** Lewis! Massive impeding that!’ the 27-year-old said on the team radio.

Traffic and blocking issues are a major problem on the iconic, narrow street circuit and it quickly became clear that miscommunication from Hamilton’s engineer caused the incident.

‘Verstappen pushing behind three seconds. Sorry, he’s slowing down behind. Watch your mirrors,’ the driver was told.

‘You said he was slowing down mate! F*** man!’ Hamilton fired back after Verstappen sped past him.

Immediately after qualifying, Hamilton approached Verstappen, with the two world champions shaking hands and seemingly having a cordial chat, with the latter later confirming he knew Hamilton was not to blame.

‘At the time, you see the car blocking you and when you are there at high speed, it’s not nice,’ Verstappen told Sky Sports.

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

Asked whether he thought Hamilton would receive a penalty, the Red Bull star replied: ‘If you look at the history of things yes. But it’s more the team’s fault. But normally in qualifying they are quite strict on these things.’

‘Qualifying is so much fun around here. Very difficult to keep out of the way of everybody,’ Hamilton further explained.

‘I think I was doing a good job of staying out of the way of everyone but then the team said Max was on a fast lap so I was to the left, then they said “no he’s not on a fast lap”.

‘I was just about to get back on power. I accelerated for 10 metres. I was off the line but for sure distracting him.’

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