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Lewis Hamilton has laughed off Max Verstappen's comments on a title defense in 2024 looking unrealistic right now. The Red Bull driver currently leads Lando Norris in the championship by 62 points with just 8 races left. While that is a huge gap between the two drivers, the RB20's underwhelming output has been a cause of concern for the Austrian outfit.
The race in Monza saw Max Verstappen finish the race outside of the top five which was attributed to due to a lack of performance in the Red Bull. However, it was not smooth sailing at the front of the grid for McLaren and Lando Norris either, as the team lost to Charles Leclerc and Ferrari in Monza.
When Lewis Hamilton was about his take on the championship fight in light of Verstappen's comments, the Mercedes driver laughed at the suggestions from the Red Bull driver and said (as quoted by "PlanetF1"):
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"He said it’s unrealistic for him to get one of the two titles? I mean, that’s his opinion, obviously, what he’s feeling in that moment, but he’s pretty far ahead,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton was also questioned about the current state of F1 where four different teams have won races. Expressing his approval of the fierce competition on the grid, he said:
“It’s amazing. This is how it should be. I think that’s ultimately probably the goal when they set the rules, but it never works out. So it’s great that we’re finally in that phase when McLaren have had a great rise, you see the Ferrari win in the last race, and us before that. Hopefully these next eight races, hopefully you’ll see something more like that, and it stays consistent, I hope,” he added.
What Max Verstappen had said that led to Lewis Hamilton's reaction
Talking to the media ahead of the F1 Azerbaijan GP, Max Verstappen was questioned about his chances of defending the title this season, to which the Dutch driver said that if the performances continued to be at the level of Monza, the title would be out of reach. He said (via the aforementioned source):
"If we perform like Monza, it’s not realistic. So we definitely need to be better than what we have been delivering lately. We know that. If we can find a better balance with the car, then actually we’ll be more competitive. But if more competitive is enough, I don’t know,” Verstappen said.
Until now, Max Verstappen has only been in a title with Lewis Hamilton in his career, and it went down to the wire. It will be very interesting to see what happens in the rest of the season as things heat up.
