Lewis Hamilton believes Max Verstappen could have allowed Esteban Ocon more room, in the wake of the clash that cost the Dutchman a likely victory at Formula 1's Brazilian Grand Prix.
Verstappen had overtaken Hamilton for the lead of the race at Interlagos and was maintaining a three-second buffer when Esteban Ocon tried un-lapping himself through the Senna S a few laps later.
Ocon was equipped with fresh Supersoft tyres, having recently pitted, and had set a quicker lap time than leader Verstappen, who was running Soft rubber.
Verstappen and Ocon came to blows through the second part of the Senna S, with both spinning, in an incident that was pinned on the Force India driver by stewards.
Hamilton benefited from the incident to re-claim the lead and went on to win the race, having survived a reliability scare, finishing 1.4 seconds clear of the delayed Verstappen.
“I saw them racing but they weren’t racing for the same position,” said Hamilton.
“In my mind, I would have been in a different frame of mind.
“Fortunately he was able to keep going, no one got hurt, and they kept going, it’s a racing incident I guess.
“Max is that go-getter guy and every now and then it bites you.”
When pressed further on the clash, Hamilton said: “I'm pretty sure there is no rule that says you can't un-lap yourself, I've done it before.
“Ultimately when you're in Ocon's position, you've got nothing to lose, you want to get through and go much quicker with quicker tyres.
“You're trapped if you've got much quicker tyres and the guy in front isn't pushing flat out, which Max wasn't, he was saving his tyres.
“So he's cruising and holding him up, you're going to go for it and try get by and move yourself forwards, and I felt it was fair game for him to try and un-lap himself.
“Of course you don't want to cause an incident, but in those scenarios you give each other space, simple as that.
“It's so simple to give each other space, you can never assume the person is not up your inside because he is a backmarker and he is going to back off.
“You’ve got to assume and acknowledge the fact he might be there and leave extra space because he is actually in a different race to me.
“That's my opinion about it, so from my seat it felt like it wasn't 100 per cent one side, more like maybe a 60-40, who knows, I've not seen the bloody incident apart from replays.”
