A much calmer Lando Norris says Max Verstappen does not need to apologise for the incident that ended his race at the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday. 96 hours earlier, the Brit said he would lose respect for his friend if he did not apologise.
At the Red Bull Ring, Verstappen was penalised with a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision with Norris. The two had been engaged in a heated battle for several laps until the Red Bull driver gently moved left towards the McLaren man as they braked for Turn 3. It resulted in small contact with big consequences.
Norris ended up out of the race, with Verstappen finishing P5 after pitting because of the puncture, extending his championship lead to 81 points over the Brit.
The Miami Grand Prix winner discussed how his emotions got the better of him on Sunday in the press conference ahead of the British Grand Prix.
“Honestly, I don’t think he needed to apologise.
“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 apologise. 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.”
On the other hand, Norris thinks the FIA and its stewarding panel needs to take a very close look at moving under braking.
It’s not the first time this subject has come up with Verstappen, dating back to 2016.
Nonetheless, Norris is aware he could have done some things better as well.
“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 kerb. 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.”
