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Lewis Hamilton has decided not to withdraw from the on-track battles when he believes he has the right to turn the corner, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said.
Wolff said he was following talks over the aggressive approach to rival Red Bull’s Max Verstappen title race.
“The change in approach is that Lewis has pretty much decided not to bail out when he thinks the corner is his,” Wolff said.
“Now it takes two to figure out when a collision can be avoided.”
The pair have had a series of mishaps and near misses during their championship fight this season.
Hamilton has withdrawn three times from tight racing situations – in the opening laps of the Grands Prix of Emilia Romagna, Spain and Italy – while Verstappen struggled in every contested corner.
It worked for him securing the lead to Imola and Barcelona early in the season, but the pair crashed together in the British and Italian races when Hamilton also decided not to give in.
At Silverstone, Hamilton won the race, despite a 10-second penalty for the incident, while at Monza both retired and Verstappen was penalized with a three-place grid penalty for the Grand Russian price this weekend.
Red Bull’s Christian Horner said he and Verstappen discuss all incidents on the track, but didn’t expect the Dutchman to change his approach.
“We always go through any incident and look at it very carefully and you always think, ‘Could I have done something different? Could I have done something better?'” Said Horner.
“Max is always very open to this. He is extremely self-critical. You are always learning.
“But he’s a relentless runner. It’s part of his character. Part of why he’s got what he does.
“You know he’s going to give 110% and that has an impact on the driver he’s driving because they’ve just done it.
“But of course there has to be measure and at the right time he has shown that measure even in different races this year, but that is part of his character to be an offensive driver.
“It’s part of its makeup and I don’t think it’s going to change.”
Both men admitted there would likely be more incidents between the two drivers in the remaining races this year.
Wolff said: “They pretty much know what they’re doing. If both wanted to avoid collisions, we’d have less. If they both feel it’s fair not to bail out, then we’ll see some. more.”
Horner said: “We want it to be a really competitive and clean race until the end of the season, but when they start next to each other Max is a guy with no quarter and Lewis has shown that ‘he didn’t. wanna give anything either. “
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