Incredible on-board footage shows Verstappen and Hamilton's 51G British Grand Prix crash (2024)

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen’s 2021 titanic championship bout will go down in history, with one moment taking the rivalry to an extreme.

Considered by many as the greatest title fight the sport has seen, it was sadly marred by controversy at the Abu Dhabi decider, but that shouldn’t take away from a frankly astonishing season.

The pair came together an unprecedented number of times for two title challengers, and were inseparable as they went into the decider level on points.

That’s only happened once before in Formula 1, in 1974 between Emerson Fittipaldi and Clay Regazzoni, but never have two rivals gone wheel-to-wheel so much in a single season.

The pair made contact in Imola and Spain, Verstappen ended up on top of Hamilton at Monza, brake-checked him in Saudi, and both nearly ended up in the wall in Brazil.

However, one moment defined their rivalry like no other, when a full-speed crash at Silverstone sent the Dutchman to hospital.

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We had a sense of what was to come in Saturday’s sprint race when Verstappen chopped Hamilton’s nose off at Copse to deny the Mercedes driver a pass, but in Sunday’s feature race, the Brit wasn’t having any of it.

In an F1 tale as old as time, the older driver decided to let the youngster know you can’t block your opponent off by any means possible, having allowed Verstappen to do so in Imola and Spain.

And when they hit Copse for the second time that weekend after an incredible first lap sparring session, Hamilton refused to back out, and disaster struck.

Verstappen was sent flying into the wall at literal break-neck speeds of at least 180mph, registering an astonishing g-force of 51Gs, the equivalent of 306kg on his head and neck.

On-board footage from Verstappen, Hamilton and Charles Leclerc showed the astonishing crash, with the Red Bull driver’s wheel ripped off as he flew into the barrier like a rocket.

Later, after the close of the season, Netflix’s Drive to Survive caught the sound of a groggy and concussed Verstappen over team radio, while they also picked up a Mercedes team member saying: “It is exactly the right lesson for Max to learn, otherwise everyone always backs out for him.”

Hamilton went on to recover from the contact and overtake Leclerc for one of his most famous home victories, while Verstappen was taken to hospital.

Later issuing an update to his fans, he explained just how he was feeling on a rare candid use of social media.

“Glad I’m ok,” he wrote. “Very disappointed with being taken out like this.

“The penalty given does not help us and doesn’t do justice to the dangerous move Lewis made on track.

“Watching the celebrations while still in hospital is disrespectful and unsportsmanlike behaviour but we move on.”

Move on they did, but contact continued throughout the season, and even into the next campaign when the pair collided in Brazil despite being in vastly different machinery.

Verstappen gave far more space to title challenger Leclerc throughout that 2022 season, meaning that once he’s back on the same tarmac as Hamilton, there’s little doubt things will quickly return to normal.