Damon Hill reveals truth behind Max Verstappen criticism after ‘Dick Dastardly’ comment
Damon Hill has been a vocal critic of Max Verstappen
Damon Hill, the 1996 F1 world champion, has hinted that his dislike of Max Verstappen’s aggressive approach stems from his background in motorcycle racing.
Hill has been a consistent critic of Verstappen, the Red Bull driver and reigning four-time world champion, over recent years.
Damon Hill explains Dick Dastardly comment after Max Verstappen criticism
The 65-year-old famously compared Verstappen to Dick Dastardly, the villain from the children’s cartoon series Wacky Races, in the aftermath of last year’s Mexican Grand Prix.
It came after Verstappen had been hit with separate penalties for two collisions in quick succession with Lando Norris, the McLaren driver, at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Verstappen has re-emerged as a contender in the F1 2025 title race over recent months after victories in Italy, Azerbaijan and the United States.
The Dutchman sits 36 points behind championship leader Norris with four rounds remaining in Brazil, Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
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Hill famously began his motorsport career on two wheels before switching to cars in the mid-1980s.
And ahead of this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix – the scene of arguably Verstappen’s greatest victory in 2024 – Hill admitted that his early racing experiences with motorbikes warned him against making contact with his competitors.
Appearing on the Stay on Track podcast, he said: “I was very critical [of Verstappen ahead of] last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix.
“I called him Dick Dastardly, who is the famous cartoon character – a fiendish character who resorted to foul means to gain an advantage in Wacky Races.
“I likened Max’s driving to that. But of course, what he was saying was: ‘Well, the rules say this…’
“I didn’t do karting, so this style of driving I didn’t get because I came from bike racing.
“And basically people, they do now, but they didn’t used to barge into you because you’d just as easily knock yourself off.
“And also overtaking on a motorbike, you’ve got far more track, there’s more space, you don’t need to squeeze people onto the grass really.
“So in car racing, it’s hard to get two cars to go around the corner together.
“And what we saw in Mexico – thinking about this comment from Lewis [Hamilton] about being ruthless – when Max came back at him and went deep into Turn 1 and they collided and he biffed Lewis out the way, there wasn’t a word.
“There wasn’t anything in that. There wasn’t a penalty for Max. It was seen as a racing incident.
“When I came to car racing and I watched it for the first time, I could not believe how they went about things.
“They literally decided championships by one guy crashing into the other and everyone thought: ‘That’s decided that.’
“I remember standing on the side of the track and they came out of Clearways [at Brands Hatch] and [one driver] just took the other guy out!
“It was how a championship was decided. And of course, rather tragically in my case, that’s also how it applied when I got to Adelaide in ’94 with me and Michael [Schumacher].
“I hadn’t learned that lesson that that is how [titles are] decided. The issue, whether or not that is implicit, it’s just understood that’s how people decide a championship.”
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Hill’s fellow pundit, the former F1 driver and FIA steward Johnny Herbert, defended Verstappen’s forceful move on Hamilton in Mexico, insisting that his willingness to intimidate his fellow competitors is a valuable asset.
Herbert said: “As we know very, very well, there are situations that you don’t want to give up your spots or you want to try and overtake the guy in front.
“It’s how you execute that. And I think we’ve both been critical of what we’ve seen.
“But we saw, for example, when he overtook Lewis going into Turn 1 in Mexico, I thought that was brilliant: right on the edge, very late, but he made the move.
“There was a little bit of tyre rubbing and that’s part of racing. It’s not going to be completely clean – as in no one’s going to touch each other – because that’s not how it works.
“There have been those occasions where, like Lewis has said to Lando, you’ve got to play hardball to be able to take it to him.
“But he’s up for that. Max enjoys that actually, which is a powerful thing.
“He intimidates people. And I remember that from Ayrton [Senna], from Alain [Prost], from Michael. They had any bit of an intimidation element.
“I was [an intimidatory driver when I raced]. I tried to intimidate all the way through.
“I knew that was a powerful thing. Put your helmet on and turn into a little bit of an animal. Elbows out.”
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