Lewis Hamilton-Max Verstappen collide but escape penalty
Late chicane collision investigated post-race but no further action taken; Hamilton and Verstappen had been nose to tail since lap 12
Tuesday 28 May 2019 19:25, UK
Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen collided in the closing laps of their tense Monaco GP duel, although race stewards imposed no penalty.
Hamilton, nursing worn tyres, provided a defensive masterclass to keep the Red Bull, on harder tyres, behind and came under his only real attack on the 76th lap when Verstappen attempted a move at the harbourside chicane.
The Red Bull dived down the inside, but the two cars made contact, with Hamilton going straight on before rejoining the track. The Englishman held on to win the race and extend his championship lead.
Stewards immediately put the incident under investigation, but ruled "no further action" was warranted.
"It was close," said Hamilton after taking victory. "A bit of a late dive, luckily I saw him last minute, but his front wing was alongside my rear wheels so he wasn't really pulling past.
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"A light touch and we moved on."
Explaining their decision to impose no penalty, stewards said: 'The stewards considered that neither car was wholly or predominantly at fault for the collision and both drivers took appropriate action subsequently to mitigate the effects of the contact.'
The Red Bull driver finished second on the road but dropped to fourth in the final classification owing to an earlier five-second time penalty for an unsafe pit-stop release into the other Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.
Sebastian Vettel was promoted to second, with Bottas third.
"I gave it all today to try and get by Lewis," Verstappen told Sky Sports F1.
"I knew that of course he was on softer tyres and he was taking it very easy once we did the stop so I started to push him and he had to then increase his pace, and at one point he went a bit through his tyres so I could really start to attack him.
"But all of the time out of the tunnel, the problem is that you can't really get close enough out of the corner to really have a good go at it. I just tried to put the pressure on. The whole race, following that closely in the dirty air through the high-speed corners is not easy around here.
"I had a fun race. Of course I would have liked to be on the podium but if we look at the pace and performance we were strong."
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