Damon Hill has described Max Verstappen as the "driver of this age", after his previous fierce criticism of the Italian Grand Prix winner. Verstappen returned to winning ways at Monza, with a first win since Imola, defeating the all-conquering McLarens fair and square, even before their late team orders snafu. 1996 champion Hill had previously criticised Verstappen for his on-track driving conduct after a pair of incidents with Lando Norris at the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix, for which he earned 20 seconds of time penalties and penalty points on his superlicence. For this, Hill labelled Verstappen as "Dick Dastardly", referencing the iconic villain from Wacky Races, but following the Monza win, Hill was full of praise for Verstappen. Check out his tweet below, and the article continues below.
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I know I've been critical of some of his passing and tactics, but there is not getting away from the fact that Max Verstappen is the driver of this age. He's a cut above in almost every respect. A phenomenon, actually. Nice job this weekend Max 👏🏼👍🏻✌🏻 — Damon Hill (@HillF1) September 7, 2025
McLaren drama
Meanwhile, Hill also rounded on McLaren's decision to impose team orders to instruct Oscar Piastri to let Norris back through for second after a late slow pit-stop for the latter. The decision, and Piastri's acceptance of it, led to a six-point swing in the all-McLaren drivers' title fight, with Norris cutting Piastri's lead to 31 points instead of it climbing to 37. On this call, Hill referenced the 1993 Italian GP, where he won after team-mate Alain Prost, romping to that year's title, suffered an engine failure.
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In 1993 I won the Italian GP (in part 😉) because Alain Prost's Renault engine blew up. I'm now worried Renault will ask me to give the result back to him! 😬 What do you make of McLaren's policy of instructing a driver to sacrifice a guaranteed result in favour of his rival? — Damon Hill (@HillF1) September 7, 2025
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