“This is a new way of running the sport where the race director can make these ad-hoc decisions. It’s been a bit too ‘guess what I’m going to do now’ I think,” said 1996 world champion Damon Hill.
Meanwhile, Verstappen took stock of his new status as champion on Monday and revealed Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, despite threatening to appeal, had texted his congratulations.
Max Verstappen celebrated long into the night after winning the drivers’ championship.Credit:AP
“Toto sent me a text, congratulations on the season and that I deserved to win it, so that was very nice of him of course,” Verstappen, slightly worse for wear after a night of partying, said.
“Lewis is a great sportsman in general. He came up to me and congratulated me and it must have been of course very tough in that last lap … But it also shows the respect we have for each other.
“Of course we had our tough times throughout the season but in the end we respect what we were doing and we were pushing each other to the limit the whole season. It has been really enjoyable racing against him.”
Loading
Verstappen had to wait some hours for the stewards to dismiss the protests but then it was party time with the whole team, from engineers to caterers, celebrating into the dawn.
“Of course when I woke up that was not so fun. I regretted maybe that final drink,” Verstappen said. “I think a lot of people have a headache at the moment.”
with Reuters
Hamilton told Mercedes race was ‘manipulated’ during dramatic final lap
Source: Philippines Alive
