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F1 fans were left reeling after Max Verstappen showcased his frustration toward rival and Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton after the latter blocked him during his hot lap in the FP2 session at the Imola Grand Prix on Friday. The Red Bull driver struggled to find the rhythm and went into the gravel on several occasions at the Aqua Minarali chicane.
His frustrations were compounded when the seven-time world champion was a bit too slow to move out of the way on the Tambarello chicane and inadvertently blocked Max Verstappen's fast lap.
The Dutch driver expressed his anger by swerving across the Mercedes driver's car and raising his hand inside the car. Although Lewis Hamilton was apologetic about the incident, speaking to F1.com, Max Verstappen said:
“It’s not the first time. You try to of course always stay calm about it, but it happened again. I also don’t really want to talk about it too much because that’s not our issue. Today we were just severely off pace, that we need to fix.”
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F1 fans took to social media to give their reactions to the incident on X, with one fan saying:
"Max always loses his whole head when Lewis annoys him. He goes full trauma download and gets aggressive like it's 2021 again. I feel like it's a sign he just expects more from Lewis," said a fan.
"Look at that kiddo when he doesn't have a car 5 tenths faster per lap," wrote another fan.
"Istg if i was lewis id hit the rear of lewis lmao," claimed another fan.
Here are some more reactions:
Max Verstappen analyzes his Friday practice session in Imola
Max Verstappen stated that it was a 'difficult' Friday for him as he finished P5 and P7 in the FP1 and FP2 sessions at the Imola Grand Prix.
As per F1.com, the three-time reigning world champion never looked comfortable inside his dominant RB20. He said to the media:
“It was a difficult day today. It was tricky to get a good balance and we were not really feeling comfortable within the car. It was moving around a lot and was very easy to lose the car at some points on the track. There are a few things we have to look at after today as our performance wasn’t as good as expected and we were not comfortable."
"We also struggled on the long runs, so there are definitely a few things to improve on if we are going to be competitive in qualifying. Today we were just off the pace, however, this is still the practice session so we will look at what we can do ahead of tomorrow and see how the weekend goes."
Max Verstappen would hope that heading into the all-important qualifying session on Saturday, Red Bull can sort out the issues that plagued him on Friday and deliver a car that can allow him to fight for pole position.
