"He did everything right" - Max Verstappen on Lewis Hamilton's F1 2021 season finale performance

Max Verstappen praised title rival Lewis Hamilton as a “great sportsman” and has said that he “felt for Lewis (Hamilton)” for losing the race despite doing everything right.

Speaking at a press conference post the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Verstappen said:

“Of course, there was one side incredibly happy, and one side was disappointed. I felt for Lewis, he did everything right throughout the whole race. But F1 can be very unpredictable and, of course, it can go either way. It could have been the other way around as well where I would be controlling the race and then I would lose it in the last lap. That’s unfortunately part of racing. Lewis is a great sportsman. But like I said it’s racing, and we all have to deal with it, if it’s positive or negative, but he will come back again, very strong because he is an amazing driver.”

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton have both put in strong performances this season, making it one of the closest championship battles in F1 history. In most races, they have been inseparable on track, and oftentimes, the pair are nearly 20 seconds ahead of the rest of the pack.

Fellow drivers, including multiple world champions Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, have felt that both Verstappen and Hamilton equally deserved to win the title this year, and that luck in his favor helped Verstappen clinch the title in Abu Dhabi.

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Lewis Hamilton absence in public continues at the Pirelli tire test at Abu Dhabi

Lewis Hamilton was among the four drivers on the 2022 grid to not sample Pirelli’s 18-inch tires for 2022. Hamilton’s absence is unusual, given that, among the other three missing drivers, Haas' Nikita Mazepin has tested positive for Covid, while Williams hasn’t built a mule car (older car with a modified suspension) for their drivers Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi to test the tires.

Since the end of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Hamilton and Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff have refused media interviews. Hamilton, who is set to be knighted on Wednesday hasn’t been in public since the race, while his social media handles have remained silent.

Meanwhile, Toto Wolff and Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas were seen crowd-surfing soon after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, in viral videos originally posted on Instagram.