Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen contested one of the most epic season-long battles in Formula 1 history in 2021. They were level on points in the championship heading into the infamous final race in Abu Dhabi.

Over the course of the year, there were three high-profile collisions between the two contenders. Verstappen was deemed at fault for two of them.

The Dutchman received a three-place grid drop after attempting a move at the Italian Grand Prix that took both drivers out of the race. Verstappen was also penalised for contact with Hamilton in Saudi Arabia, a farcical incident where he slowed down sharply to let the Mercedes through.

But the most notable crash came at the British GP, and on that occasion the stewards ruled that Hamilton was to blame. The home favourite had beaten Verstappen to pole position but lost the lead into the first corner.

He then tried to get it back into the high-speed Copse corner but tagged the rear of the Red Bull, causing him to veer into the barriers at high speed. Verstappen suffered a 51G impact that forced him to go to hospital.

He was passed fit to race in Hungary a fortnight later, but if there was tension between the two teams before this race, it developed into outright animosity. The title race was brilliant, but it was also bitter.

Lewis Hamilton decided he wasn’t going to ‘yield’ before 2021 British Grand Prix crash with Max Verstappen

Speaking on the High Performance podcast, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff reflected on the events at Silverstone in 2021. He feels it was a racing incident where both drivers decided they weren’t going to back out.

Hamilton didn’t want to give any quarter to Verstappen, and managed to win the race despite his penalty. While this was an ‘important’ victory at the time, Wolff says he should at least have checked on Verstappen.

He’d heard he was broadly ‘fine’, but admits he ought to have called Jos Verstappen. While they ‘cleared the air’ afterwards, he said both teams fell short of behavioural standards that year.

“That was a moment where the two decided they were not yielding the corner and it ended up in that situation,” he said. “Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt.

“I could have reacted in a better way. I heard from one of the Red Bull engineers that he was fine. We went on to win the race and he didn’t score, so that was important to bounce back in the championship.

“The driving at times was not clean. In retrospect, I should have just picked up the phone and called Jos and said ‘is he fine?’ Now, Jos clearly would have told me what he was thinking about that situation and that was fine. I should have, as a father, called the father of the driver and just ask, and I didn’t.

“We cleared the air on that one and there were many more incidents in that particular year that were not to the standards that we all expect from each other.”

Toto Wolff shares who tipped him off about Lewis Hamilton joining Ferrari

Earlier in the interview, host Jake Humphrey inevitably asked Wolff about Hamilton’s impending move to Ferrari. He’ll bid farewell to Mercedes in just three races’ time.

Wolff sent a text to Fred Vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, to ask if he was ‘taking our driver’. He didn’t receive a reply.

This was after Carlos Sainz Sr warned Wolff that Ferrari were letting his son go to sign Hamilton. The Spaniard was in the final year of his deal.

Wolff received advice from Pep Guardiola, the Manchester City manager, about the 39-year-old’s exit. Guardiola feels that a good manager lets stars go when they express a wish to leave, rather than fighting to keep them.

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