Zimpapers Logo

LONDON. — The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, has said he fears the Formula One world championship title fight between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen could be decided by a crash between the two drivers.

After the pair tangled repeatedly on Sunday at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, which Hamilton won, Wolff said emotions were running high and the season finale in Abu Dhabi this weekend could turn “messy”.

Following his victory at Jeddah, Hamilton drew level with Verstappen on points with 369.5 apiece. They go to the 22nd and final race of the season for a winner-takes-all showdown. But Verstappen still holds an advantage as grand prix wins are the tiebreaker. With nine wins to Hamilton’s eight, if the pair remain level on points, in the event of neither finishing, Verstappen will take the title.

At Jeddah, Hamilton and Verstappen vied with each other in incidents where they went off track while going wheel-to-wheel and Hamilton hit the back of Verstappen’s car when he slowed to give the lead back to the world champion having been instructed to do so by race control.

Both believed they were in the right but Verstappen was given two penalties by the stewards, one for going off track and one for erratic braking.

The friendly respect between the pair has dissipated swiftly in these final races. Hamilton said Verstappen had gone “over the limit” and suggested he had been driving dangerously enough to take him out of the race.

F1 has some history of title protagonists taking each other out to decide the championship, not least the duels between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in 1989 and 1990.

Wolff was acutely aware of the dangers of a clash in Abu Dhabi or the title decision ending in the hands of the stewards. “I would hope that (Sunday’s) race has enough repercussions that everybody’s going to learn from it and adapt for the final race,” he said.— The Guardian