Hamilton urges Verstappen to act like a world champion

Even his greatest fans will admit the Dutchman was in foul spirits throughout the race at Hungaroring. When a podium seemed likely, Verstappen came upon Hamilton. What ensued was an intriguing battle, with the Red Bull on fresher tyres than the Mercedes.

On lap 62 of 60 in Hungary, Verstappen made his move from too far back into Turn 1. The Red Bull ramped over Hamilton's car as the driver braked too late. That there was no Monza style mounting, was lucky for both.

However, Verstappen went too wide and allowed the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc to nip past. What might've been P3 for the World Champ was P5. Hamilton went on to finish P3 behind McLaren duo Oscar Poaistri who inherited the win from teammate Lando Norris.

Verstappen was foul-mouthed throughout the race. Berating his Red Bull team, rude to his long-suffering engineer Gianpiero Lambiase as well as rivals. It was an ugly Max who came to work that day.

Ahead of the weekend in Belgium, Hamilton reflected on Verstappen's 'dive-bomb' during last Sunday's race: "I was really, really surprised by it. I think I was already very relaxed about the situation. I just said, it's just a racing incident, let's just move on. But considering one car was in control, one car was not in control at the time.

"And if you look at the replay, I'm very, very far from, at the end of the whole move. I'm very, very far from the apex. So, I've left, there's a lot of room on the right-hand side. So, I was very, very surprised," admitted Hamilton.

As for Verstappen's verbose disdain for his team, 39-year-old Hamilton ventured: "You have to be a team leader, a team member. Maybe not so much a team leader but more so just always remember you are a team-mate with lots of people and you have to act like a world champion."

What does that mean? Hamilton replied: "That's a good question... But not like it was last weekend."

Verstappen was staunchly unrepentant after the race, blaming his team and not accepting fault: "At the end of the day if we would have done a better strategy you're not in that position. I don't think that was wrong. I went for a move that was fully on, I don't think I braked too late."