12/09/2021
NEWS STORY
Lewis Hamilton believes that the Halo device saved his life following today's clash with Max Verstappen during the Italian Grand Prix.
The pair were involved in a horrific clash on the 25th lap of the race, moments after the world champion had pitted for fresh rubber.
In the incident, Verstappen's Red Bull rose into the air with the rear of the car subsequently landing on the Mercedes, close up pictures revealing Hamilton helplessly looking up as his rival's car crashed down, hitting the Halo protective device just above his head.
"I feel very fortunate today," he subsequently told reporters. "Thank God for the Halo which saved me, and saved my neck.
"I am so grateful I am still here," he added. "I feel incredibly blessed that someone was watching over me today.
"I don't think I've ever been hit on the head by a car before," he continued, "and it is quite a big shock for me. We are taking risks and it's only when you experience something like that that you get the real shock of how you look at life and how fragile we all are.
"If you look at the images of the crash, my head is really quite far forward in the cockpit."
"The Halo definitely saved Lewis' life today," agreed team boss, Toto Wolff. "It would have been a horrible accident that I don't even want to think about if we didn't have the Halo."
Reflecting on the fact that this is the latest in a series of incident as the pair battle for the title, the Austrian added: "They need to find a way of how to race each other... either leave room in every direction... but there will be accidents when it is not clear cut, and it's never clear cut actually.
"They know in the car what they are doing and how they are racing," he continued, "and we should be watching with interest and hopefully we will not have eight accidents in the next eight races because then we will lose the championship by five points.
"I think Lewis gave a lot of space in Turn 4 on lap one and avoided a collision. Maybe I am more unsportsmanlike than Lewis because I would have ended the race there, at least we would have had less engine mileage.
"Both of them need to leave space for each other," he insisted, "race each other hard but avoid accidents.
"It was good fun until now, but we have seen Halo save Lewis' life today and Max had this heavy impact in Silverstone and we don't want to get to a situation where we intervene because someone gets really hurt."
"I definitely didn't think Max would lose control over the kerb and run into me," said Hamilton. "Looking back at the footage, it obviously happened very quick.
"Being in the car, all I could think of was getting going and how many positions I was losing," he admitted. "I'm still just in race mode, so it's just like: 'how can I get going again?', I'm sitting there in a little bit of pain, but just like, 'come on let's go'. But unfortunately the car wouldn't move."
The Briton admitted that he was surprised that following the incident, Verstappen walked away without checking to see if he was OK.
"I did see Max get out and just walk by. I found that a little bit surprising, because ultimately I think when we go out, and when we do have incidents, the first thing we want is make sure if the guy that we crashed into or we collided with is okay. But the good thing is I was able to get out. It was a long walk back, but we live to fight another day."