Max Verstappen clarifies vision issue he faced after Lewis Hamilton Silverstone crash

Max Verstappen has moved to clarify the vision problems he suffered following his huge crash with F1 title rival Lewis Hamilton at the 2021 British Grand Prix.

The three-time world champion was misquoted in an interview with Red Bull’s website when he revealed his vision was affected by the 51G crash at the high-speed Copse corner on the opening lap of that year’s race at Silverstone.

The original story, which has since been taken down, included quotes which suggested that Verstappen was still battling the medical problem.

However, this is not the case, as Verstappen explained to media including Crash.net on Thursday ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

“It was just in 21,” Verstappen said. “After that it went away. It did occur, back then.”

Asked if the issue was a direct consequence of the Silverstone accident which hospitalised Verstappen, he quipped: “It didn’t happen before, let's say it like that!”

Verstappen added: “It’s not something I would advise for people to have while driving.

“We are racing drivers, you deal with all sorts of stuff. Always here and there people have like little injuries or whatever. Those things happen.”

The Dutchman revealed he only told a small number of people within the team because he didn’t want to give away any signs of weakness amid his fierce, season-long battle with seven-time world champion Hamilton.

While Verstappen was tight-lipped on the details, he confirmed a cure for the problem was found.

“It got cured, luckily,” he said. “I don’t want to go into details, no one needs to know.”

In the original interview, Verstappen described how the problem impacted him during his narrow victory over Hamilton at the United States Grand Prix.

“It was like driving a speedboat at 300km/h!” Verstappen said. “I’ve never said this before, but it was so bad for a few laps that I seriously considered turning the car off.

“The only thing that helped was to concentrate on my breathing with Lewis breathing down my neck. An important win that I desperately needed in the championship fight.”