Hamilton feels 'incredibly blessed' after surviving crash

Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton credited the halo device for saving his life in a crash during Sunday's Italian Grand Prix.

Hamilton was jockeying for position with rival Max Verstappen on lap 26 and the two collided, with Verstappen's car winding up on top of Hamilton's.

The halo cockpit safeguard, which protects the driver's head, deflected Verstappen's rear tire away from Hamilton's head and onto the front of the car. It has been used on the F1 circuit since 2018.

"Honestly, I feel very, very fortunate today," he added. "Thank God for the halo. That ultimately saved me. And saved my neck. I think in the actual moment it was a big hit, but all I could think was to get going again.

"I don't think I've ever been hit on the head by a car before, and it's quite a shock for me.

"I'm so, so grateful that I'm still here. I feel incredibly blessed. I feel like someone was watching over me today."

A few hours after the accident, Hamilton, 36, said his neck was hurting.

"I will probably need to see a specialist to make sure I'm good for the next race because it is getting tighter and tighter. But I'll live," he said.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff called a 'tactical foul' but Red Bull counterpart Christian Horner said he was disappointed by the Austrian's comment.

"I think it's a racing incident and thankfully nobody was injured today," he said after a race that ended in a McLaren one-two with Daniel Ricciardo the winner.

Stewards disagreed and said Hamilton's positioning was reasonable.

Verstappen started and ended the day five points clear of Hamilton after gaining two points from Saturday's sprint qualifying race.

The Red Bull driver had lost 11 seconds to a slow pit stop that dropped him down the order, and when Hamilton pitted later the Briton emerged from the pit lane a fraction ahead.

The cars ran wheel-to-wheel and made contact at the first chicane, the Red Bull lifting off the kerb and into the air with both ending up in the gravel.

"I made sure I left a car's width on the outside for him, I went into turn one and I was ahead and going into turn two and then all of a sudden he was on top of me," said Hamilton.

"He just didn't want to give way today and he knew when he was going into two what was going to happen... but he still did it," he told Sky Sports.

Verstappen said Hamilton "just kept on squeezing me.

"If he would have left me just a car width we would have raced out of turn two anyway and I think he would have probably still been in front. But he just kept on pushing me wider and at one point there was nowhere to go."

Verstappen walked away from his car uninjured. Race stewards found him "predominantly to blame" for the accident and assessed a three-place grid penalty for the Sept 26 Russian Grand Prix.

He disagreed with the penalty.

"Today was very unfortunate," the Dutch driver tweeted. "The incident could have been avoided if I had been left enough space to make the corner. You need 2 people to make that work and I feel I was squeezed out of it. When racing each other, these things can happen, unfortunately."

The title rivals also collided at the British Grand Prix when Verstappen ended up in hospital for checks and Hamilton took the win.

Ricciardo's victory was his first win since Monaco 2018, when the Australian was with Red Bull, and McLaren's first since the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix. Teammate Lando Norris finished second ahead of Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas.

Reuters