Tag: Austrian GP

There was only ever going to be one storyline dominating Thursday at the British Grand Prix, and while it involved two drivers, the rest of the grid was always going to be dragged into the debate.

The battle between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris in Austria had led to some strong comments from the McLaren side on Sunday night, and a similarly robust response — as well as a defense — from Red Bull.

Verstappen had largely stayed out of it at the time, but with just three days between race events and a chance to find out how the situation had developed at Silverstone, there was plenty of anticipation as media day got underway.

The two main protagonists quickly defused any animosity between them, with Verstappen making clear his only concern had been for his relationship with Norris. The McLaren driver similarly cooled his view, but did still suggest there are gray areas that need addressing when it comes to the rules of racing.

Yet that wasn’t a view as widely shared by the rest of the Formula 1 grid as you might expect.

“It was aggressive racing, but I think it was blown out of proportion in my opinion,” Alex Albon said. “I think it was questionable more the first move where Max moved under braking the first time. I don’t think he really moved under braking in the one where they made contact, it was just heading more towards a straight line, going more towards the left. Definitely more you guys [media] enjoying it. The reality of it was just pure, hard racing.

“They are both going for the win so it’s going to be emotional. It’s in the moment and they are both fighting for victory, so I think it will play an impact on their relationship to some degree. Especially as McLaren are going to be fighting more and more for victory.

“Could even get the same action this weekend and for the rest of the year. It’s just natural when drivers keep finding themselves in the same positions, in first and second, they are going to have more chances to bang wheels.”

Albon says it’s also no surprise that Norris was fighting so hard trying to find a way past the Red Bull, adding: “Every driver would. I don’t know any driver who would be in with a chance to win a race and kind of not put it on the line. We are all very similarly programmed.”

Albon’s sentiments were shared by Daniel Ricciardo — who collided with Verstappen in Baku in 2018 when they were teammates at Red Bull — but felt the actual incidents in Austria were not worthy of significant focus.

“I watched the incidents, or the battle, but I haven’t seen anything of the aftermath in terms of what’s been said, what hasn’t been said,” Ricciardo said. “Like the moving under braking, I have an understanding of what I should do and shouldn’t do.

“You look at it, it’s hard, but you’re also fighting for a win, so you’re not just going to wave someone by. I think the contact, that can happen probably nine times out of 10 with no consequence. It was also, they’d been going it back and forth, maybe the angle was a bit awkward, Lando ended [his] race. I think the outcome was probably bigger than what was actually happening on track.

“What I saw at least, nothing seemed over the top. Was it pushing the edge? Probably. But was anything dangerous or reckless? At least from what I’ve seen, no.”

Ricciardo says the way Verstappen races has been the same since he joined F1 and believes that analyzing the incident in slow motion isn’t always fair. However, he agreed with Albon that a fight should be that intense if it’s for a victory.

“You know that, you have to expect that. But… I don’t even want to spotlight Max, I think when you’re fighting for a win, you fight for a win. Are you going to fight harder than 15th place? Honestly, yes. Because it’s just how it is. I think it’s to be expected.

“I’m not saying whether everything was correct and by the book — maybe some things were pushing it, but again, they’re going to talk about it, because it’s for the win, and as I said, they’ll probably try and create some enemies out of two kids that get along.

“But I think honestly, it’s good that there’s a hard battle for the lead. Unfortunate it ended that way for them, but that’s how it goes.”

Kevin Magnussen has previously advocated for a more American-style approach to racing in F1 following his experience of IndyCar and IMSA, wanting the drivers to be able to self-police more knowing the consequences of contact.

“I think it’s frustrating that it’s always going back and forth with rules,” Magnussen said. “Maybe they just have to make it more free. At the end of the day, he [Verstappen] got a penalty, which I guess was correct by the rules, but at the end of the day, he got a natural penalty with his puncture, so it didn’t pay off for him to drive the way he did in that moment.

“I just think there is a natural sort of dynamic to racing. If you let the drivers race for free, they will race hard, but at the end of the day you want to be finishing races. You want to be taking care of your car. That kind of stops the drivers from doing too-crazy things.”

Carlos Sainz pointed out how challenging it is for drivers to remember all of the ways that a battle will be judged based on where they are positioned in the fight.

“In my view it is clear that you can move to defend and then come back, but always leave one car’s width to the white line so the other car fits,” Sainz said. “That’s the rule. I really struggle with the fact that we need to keep adding rules to the racing side of it.

“I think there’s so many already; if you read the rulebook about what you have to do if you overtake on the inside, what you need to do if you defend on the inside, what you need to do if you attack on the outside, what you need to do if you defend from the outside… It’s all a different set of regulations that is already super-detailed and specific, which I struggle to follow exactly when I’m driving a car at 300kph. Because you cannot think at that speed about all those rules.

“Let’s say I don’t want any further rules; the rules are clear enough. And there was a decision taken on the stewards’ side already.”

While it has been suggested that Norris had to race in a forceful way against Verstappen because of how aggressive the Red Bull driver can be, Charles Leclerc — who likened last weekend’s clash to a similar one he had with Verstappen in 2022 — says he still fights against each of his rivals in the same style.

“You get to know the drivers more and more,” Leclerc said. “And with Max, he’s probably the driver that I know most on the grid as we have driven against each other from a very long time — since back in 2010, I think. You know more or less how each driver is going to react or fight or defend or attack you.

“However, I don’t fight them in different ways, any of them. I’ll always try and fight them in the same way. It mostly depends on the situation you are in, and of course if you are fighting for a P6 in the championship, and Max is 100 points ahead, you might not fight him as hard. But when a win is on the table, I will always go flat out with whoever I’m fighting with.”

Encouragingly, Verstappen said he and Norris have agreed to fight just as hard with each other if faced with a similar scenario in future. So while there might not have been fireworks off-track as the British Grand Prix weekend got underway, there could be some on it come Sunday.

Lando Norris says he no longer believes Max Verstappen needs to apologize to him for the contact between the pair that ended his race in the Austrian Grand Prix.

Verstappen was given a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision after drifting left into Norris on his outside under braking for Turn 3 at the Red Bull Ring, a corner that had seen the pair battling for a number of laps. Norris was unhappy with the way Verstappen was defending and at the time said he felt he didn’t get a fair fight, and that any talks would need initiating with an apology from the Dutchman. On arrival at the British Grand Prix, however, he changed his stance.

“Honestly, I don’t think he needed to apologize,” Norris said. “I think like some of the things I said in the pen after the race was more because I was frustrated at the time. A lot of adrenaline and emotions, and I probably said some things I didn’t necessarily believe in, especially later on in the week.

“It was tough. It was a pretty pathetic incident, in terms of what ended both of our races. It wasn’t like a hit, it wasn’t like an obvious bit of contact. It was probably one of the smallest bits of contact you can have, but with a pretty terrible consequence for both of us, especially for myself.

“Yeah, he does’t need to. I don’t expect an apology from him — I don’t think he should apologize. I thought it was, as a review, good racing. At times, maybe very close to the edge, but we’ve spoken about it and we’re both happy to go racing again.”

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Norris does, however, want the FIA to clamp down on moves under braking.

“I think it was still very clear that it was happening,” he said, referring to moving under braking. “It’s a tricky one. Max isn’t going to want to crash — he’s not going to want to ruin his own race or his own chances. So I think yes, there are definitely things I need to do slightly differently. I don’t think he’s going to change too much; I don’t think I’m going to change much.

“Could we have avoided the crash? Definitely. Is there something I could have done? I easily could have used more curb. But there’s things from both sides that I’m sure we wanted to do better or in a slightly different way.

“On the whole, avoiding an incident from moving under braking is the biggest part of it. There could very easily be an incident that comes from such a thing, and I think if anything to be very careful of, it’s something that could happen.

“So that’s just something for the future that the stewards and FIA need to be aware of, that something could easily go wrong. So I think to a certain point, you’re defending, you’re being aggressive, and that’s OK. But there’ll be a point when there is a limit, and I think that just needs to be defined in a slightly better way.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella claimed the battle with Verstappen led to incidents that could have been avoided if addressed during the 2021 title battle that also involved Lewis Hamilton, and while Hamilton disagreed with Stella’s comments, Norris backed his boss.

“I’m sure Lewis would agree with it two years ago or three years ago! 100%,” he said. “There were definitely a few moments especially. I think Andrea’s got a very good amount of sensibility with the things he talks about.

“Certain things are always different when you’re a little bit more in the moment… but on the whole, I agree with what Andrea says.”

Lando Norris accused Max Verstappen of being “a little bit desperate” and lacking respect in their battle for the lead in the Austrian Grand Prix that ended in contact.

Verstappen’s comfortable lead disappeared towards the end of the second stint of the race, with Norris taking advantage of a slow pit stop from Red Bull to get within DRS range and trying to overtake. Multiple attempts down the inside of Turn 3 saw Norris fail to get the move done — once running wide himself and another seeing Verstappen go wide and rejoin ahead — before Verstappen was penalized for causing a collision with Norris on the outside approaching the corner.

“I expect a tough battle against Max,” Norris said. “I know what to expect, I expect aggression and pushing the limits and that kind of thing, but all three times he’s doing stuff that can easily cause an incident, and in [a way that’s] a bit reckless.

“It seemed like a little bit desperate from his side. It doesn’t need to be; he’s got plenty of wins, but a bit desperate to do what he could to not let me past. I know he’s going to be aggressive so I’m in a way not surprised… I jut expected a tough, fair, respectful, on-the-edge bit of racing, and I don’t feel like that’s what I got.”

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Verstappen was handed a 10s time penalty for the incident that ended Norris’ race, but the McLaren driver says his issue is Verstappen’s approach.

“I do what I can, try and drive a good, fair race, and just…not what I got in return from his side. I don’t care about the rest honestly, it’s not for me to decide the penalties and things like that. I feel like what he did was unfair. Three of the times, no warning was issued, he did it again a final time and ruined both of our races.”

There was criticism of Norris’ overtaking attempts from Verstappen — who called them “dive-bombs” — but the McLaren driver says he was in control of his own overtaking moves until Verstappen reacted.

“The thing is, a little bit of movement is going to happen, but he’s completely reacting to what I was doing. Once you’ve committed so aggressively on the brakes you don’t leave room for getting off and allowing a bit more space in the braking zone.

“Once you’ve committed, you’ve committed. He moved, which forced me to move, and therefore I would lock up or do something, but every point before he moved I was not locked up or out of control.

“My moves were fair, until I had to react to something he did in the middle of the braking zone, and you don’t have grip, you’re not able to…adjust and counter these kinds of things [when you’re on the edge]. At the same time, if I’m not able to move like I was, then you’re going to have more collisions. I’m happy with what I did; [I] wouldn’t change anything.”

Max Verstappen says he will talk to Lando Norris after the dust has settled from the Austrian Grand Prix, as he disagrees that he was moving under braking defending against the McLaren.

Norris caught Verstappen in the final stint of the race after a slow pit stop for the Red Bull driver, and attempted on multiple occasions to try and pass at Turn 3. Making an attempt on the inside from a long way back, Norris complained that Verstappen moved under braking in response to him three times, before the pair touched when Norris was trying on the outside and both picked up punctures.

“For me it was not moving under braking because every time I moved I was not braking already,” Verstappen said. “Of course from the outside it looks like that, but I think I know fairly well what to do in these kinds of scenarios

“A few of those were really late divebombs, so it’s a bit of a ‘just send them up the inside and hope that the other guy steers out of it,’ which is not always how you race. But I think the corner here lends to that as well — I’ve been in the other position where you go for it and it’s just the shape of the corner.

“The move we got together was something I didn’t expect because I saw him coming, defend a little bit the inside, then under braking we touch the rear tires and we both get a puncture from it, which of course is something you don’t want to happen.

“We’ll talk about it; not now, it’s not the right time, but we’re racing drivers. Of course Lando and I have a little age gap which is why we never really raced together in lower categories like some other drivers here, but we’ll move on.”

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Verstappen was handed a 10s time penalty for the collision that led to damage that ultimately demoted him to fifth and forced Norris to retire, and while the Red Bull driver felt that was harsh, he was more focused on Norris’ earlier attempts to pass when he was on the verge of receiving a penalty for exceeding track limits.

“That’s what I meant with the divebombing — just sending it up late and hoping the other guy stays out of it and you make the corner, which wasn’t the case.

“Of course moving under braking for me wasn’t the case as I literally didn’t brake when I moved, but it’s also a bit sending it up the inside from far, which of course looks good, I like it as well, but sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Today that didn’t work out. Then, like I said before, with the contact we had — super unfortunate.”

The championship leader ended up extending his advantage by 10 points courtesy of his fifth place, but he was left frustrated by the overall performance from Red Bull having seen an 8s lead mid-race disappear.

“I think the first stint was quite good, then at the end of that first stint I caught quite a bit of traffic. We should have boxed for me, personally, because I just gave up free lap time. We basically did a lot of things wrong today, I think starting with strategy.

“The pit stops were a disaster. The first one was really bad, the second one even more of a disaster, and then you give free lap time — 6s over those two pit stops.

“[Of course, then] it’s a race again and that’s why we put ourselves in that position. Unfortunate…for an accident to happen between us, which you never want to happen, but we did everything wrong that we could have done today.”