Max Verstappen's Red Bull mounted Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes after hitting a kerb, with Hamilton hit by the inside of a rear wheel through the halo; Michael Masi says FIA's safety department are taking a look at the incident
Tuesday 14 September 2021 11:20, UK
The FIA will investigate the Italian GP crash between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton because it was "unusual", according to Formula 1 race director Michael Masi.
Masi said that although the collision was relatively low-speed, the FIA's safety experts would still take a look.
The crash had Verstappen's Red Bull lift up off a kerb and land on Hamilton's Mercedes with the inside of a rear wheel hitting the seven-time world champion's helmet through the protective halo.
"Incidents that are different, so it's not necessarily high G impacts or anything like that, but are unusual, we do look at," said Masi.
"Our safety department does look at them in detail, investigate and see what we can learn and what we can improve for the future. That's how we have a whole lot of the safety features that we have today, and will continue to evolve into the future.
"We are already collecting all of the data, so we have all of the information and that will all go to our safety department together with any photographs and anything else we have along the way."
Hamilton has said that the halo "saved" him and criticised Verstappen for not pulling out of the move, which saw him land a three-place grid penalty for the next F1 race, the Russian GP.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has called for a change in the fierce rivalry to avoid another big accident, though Masi hinted that he wouldn't be speaking to Hamilton and Verstappen specifically about their latest collision.
"They're in a very tight championship fight, two fantastic drivers and they're extremely close," he told Sky F1. "Once you are in that situation, both drivers will take more risks one way or the other.
"There wasn't anything, in our perspective, silly - the stewards looked at it in exactly the same manner as they would any other incident and decided that one driver was predominantly to blame."
Toto Wolff, Mercedes: "I think in football you'd say it was a tactical foul. He probably knew that if Lewis stays ahead, that is the race win possibly.
"I think when you look at Turn 4, Lewis backed out and that was quite a thing because probably you know he's staying ahead of you. And then incidents where they actually crash, it was clear for Max in there that they would crash.
"I think if we don't manage that in the right way, this is going to continue. They had a high-speed crash at Silverstone, we had one car ending on top of the other one on Lewis' head here, so how far can you go? Maybe next time we'll have a high-speed crash and land on each other."
Christian Horner, Red Bull: "Max had the momentum. He had enough space around the outside, I think Lewis gave enough through the run into Turn 1 and I think our opinion would be that Lewis perhaps closed him too much into Turn 2.
"I think if you took the middle ground on it you'd say it was a racing incident. But I genuinely think that you could argue Max could have bailed to the left, you could argue that Lewis should have given him more space. To apportion blame more to one side than another, I genuinely think that in that incident, it's very difficult to do.
"I think he earnt the right to have a bit more space. I'm disappointed that Toto would say it was a professional foul but I think it's a racing incident and thankfully nobody was injured."
