Verstappen saw ‘no reason to’ contact Hamilton

Max Verstappen has said he he saw “no reason” to contact Lewis Hamilton over the winter and that the time has come to “move on”.

Hamilton went into silent mode following the events of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where he saw an eighth World Championship slip away from his grasp on the very last lap due to some very controversial decision-making by then race director Michael Masi when trying to organise a race restart following Nicholas Latifi’s late crash.

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Apart from one brief post-race interview, where Hamilton was magnanimous in defeat, the seven-time World Champion removed himself completely from the public eye and social media until a few days before Mercedes‘ W13 launch in February.

Having processed what happened at the Yas Marina circuit and recharged his batteries, Hamilton returned in defiant mood and warned that he intends to be the best version of himself yet in his prestigious Formula 1 career.

Many people would have no doubt reached out to Hamilton in his months of silence, but one of those wasn’t title rival Verstappen.

“No,” was Verstappen’s reply when asked by the Daily Mail whether he had been in contact with Hamilton over the winter.

“There is no reason to. We haven’t seen each other since just after the end of the race. It is fine. We are racers and we move on.”

Verstappen’s critics and detractors will say he has an asterisk next to his title of