Max Verstappen says he doesn’t sympathize with McLaren’s arguments over Lando Norris’ penalty in the United States Grand Prix amid multiple complaints this season.
Norris was handed a 5s time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage when overtaking Verstappen around the outside at Turn 12, despite the Red Bull driver also going off track in the incident. With McLaren also vocal about Red Bull’s car design this weekend following an FIA request to remove a device that can change ride heights, Verstappen was dismissive of the Norris penalty.
“No, I don’t [sympathize],” Verstappen said. “I mean, they complain about a lot lately anyway, but it’s very clear in the rules. Outside the white line, you cannot pass. I’ve been done for it as well in the past.
“I think it’s quite clear: you can’t overtake outside of the white line. I mean, I got done for it also here in, I think, 2017 or whatever it was. I lost my podium like that. I just remained calm, tried to do the best I could after that to bring the car to the end because it was not easy with the tires and the situation that I was in. But overall, I still really enjoyed that battle that we had.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1388]
Verstappen overtook Norris at the start into Turn 1 with a move down the inside that also saw both drivers run wide, but he says losing a position to race-winner Charles Leclerc was not overly damaging to his final race result.
“There was a gap on the inside, so I went for it. That corner is very wide, so it gives you a lot of opportunity of going very wide or try to go really tight. I chose for that option, and I still came out second! Started second, came out second out of Turn 1.
“This time, of course, it was Charles in front. I think it worked out quite well for me because Charles was faster, so he just pulled away. From there, I just tried to do my own race.
“I just tried to do the best I could, to be honest. My balance wasn’t great. I was just not really… I was not able to attack the corners. [Norris] was putting [on] a lot of pressure, but around here, it’s quite a cool track to defend. There are a lot of possibilities. It makes it good for racing.”
Despite not having the pace to fight for victory as Ferrari secured a one-two, Verstappen leaves Austin having extended his championship lead over Norris to 57 points.
“That is definitely the positive,” he said. “I did hope for a little bit more performance today, so that’s what we have to analyze why today we were just not that good. I think everyone was a little bit better or at least the same as yesterday, and it felt like we were definitely worse. I need to understand why that was, because I don’t know at the moment.”