Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton clash during Imola practice

A furious Max Verstappen accused Lewis Hamilton of impeding him during practice at Imola yesterday, swerving in front of the Briton in retaliation before gesticulating angrily at his rival.

The three-time world champion, who had a ragged day all round, ending it seventh fastest, complained afterwards that it was “not the first time” that it had happened.

Verstappen and Hamilton have a history of flashpoints, famously colliding at Silverstone and Monza when they battled for the drivers’ championship in 2021.

On this occasion, Verstappen lost his temper with Hamilton after being held up through the Villeneuve chicane before Tosa. Mercedes’ seven-time world champion owned up to the error and tried to apologise as Verstappen passed, raising his hand as if to say sorry. But Verstappen swerved in front of Hamilton – missing his car by inches – before angrily gesticulating at the Briton.

“It’s not the first time,” Verstappen said afterwards. “You try to, of course, always stay calm about it. But yeah, it happened again.

“But at the other end, I don’t want to really talk about it too much, because that’s not our issue today.”

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was also unimpressed with Hamilton after a couple of close calls during FP2. “Hamilton thinks that he is alone on the track,” Alonso complained to his team over the radio. “It’s the second lap he does it. Turn 12 and now turn seven.”

Verstappen was in a bad mood generally after going off track a total of three times in Friday practice. The Dutchman admitted it had been a difficult day.

“We were just severely off the pace that we need to fix,” he said. “We’ll look at a few things that we can do better for tomorrow. But yeah, it looks a bit like the others took a bit of a step forward. And from our side just a bad day.’”

Ferrari were the Friday pacesetters and while Hamilton may have incurred the wrath of his rivals in Imola, the impression grows that his timing has been brilliant as regards his move to Maranello next year. You can feel the hope in the stands here.

As well as Hamilton, Ferrari are inching ever closer to signing Adrian Newey. Indeed whispers are rife in Imola that Red Bull’s design guru has already signed on the dotted line.

The Scuderia have also poached Mercedes’ Jerome d’Ambrosio, a man who was being groomed to be Toto Wolff’s successor at Brackley, and their performance director Loic Serra. To cap a tough week for Mercedes, they also lost their chief aerodynamicist Gioacchino Vino yesterday, although they have recruited two figures from Ferrari in Simone Resta and Enrico Sampo.

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