‘Inevitable’: the first real F1 fight between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris ends in tears

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SPIELBERG, Austria – Over the past three seasons, the combination of Max Verstappen and the Red Bull car has proven so powerful that the rest of the Formula 1 field has rarely seriously challenged it.

And that has changed in recent races.

Lando Norris took victory in Miami, closed late on Verstappen at Imola and could have won in Canada and Spain, only for small mistakes to cost him. At no point had he actually done that raced Verstappen. Their friendship, sharing flights and padel courts, has remained strong.

But on Sunday at the Austrian Grand Prix the inevitable happened: Verstappen and Norris really raced, raced hard and it ended in a collision that will test the bonds between them.

“It’s just a bit reckless,” Norris said to the media after the race, gloomy because the chance of victory had been taken away. “It seemed a bit desperate on his part.”

How Red Bull got Verstappen into trouble

It was a crash that shouldn’t have been likely in the first place. Verstappen was in complete control until his pit stop on lap 51 of 71. His only minor obstacles were traffic, the occasional lack of blue flags as he rounded cars, and a slower pit stop.

But a second, terribly slow pit stop by Red Bull, the slickest and fastest team on the F1 grid, got Verstappen into trouble. A stop that usually lasts about two seconds lasted 6.5 seconds due to a problem tightening the left rear wheel nut, which wiped out the buffer in front of Norris.

One battle, two different points of view 🗣️🗣️#F1 #AustrianGP pic.twitter.com/5aUbIoTVG4

— Formula 1 (@F1) June 30, 2024

Verstappen was calm in the media after the race, seemingly more disappointed with Red Bull’s performance than the collision itself. He called it a “terrible” race and said the team “did a lot of things wrong today,” citing the strategy that left him battling traffic and “disastrous” pit stops. “If you give yourself a free lap time, six seconds above those two pit stops, then it is of course a race again,” said Verstappen. “That’s why we put ourselves in that position.”

The added complication for Verstappen was that he had a lightly used set of medium tires instead of the new set that Norris could use, giving the McLaren the grip advantage. As they weaved through traffic, Norris was able to easily sit within DRS range of Verstappen and plan where to go.

Aggression meets aggression

“If it is necessary, and the time comes to race him, I will do it 100 percent.”

Norris’ promise in an interview with The Athletics at Suzuka there was always going to be testing at some point. And he quickly made up for that with his lunges on Verstappen.

On lap 59, for his first attempt to overtake Verstappen at the top of the hill, Norris entered the third corner, a wide corner with plenty of room for an inside turn. Norris briefly got ahead, but ran off the track, sending Verstappen flying ahead again on the drive to Turn 4. Verstappen immediately alerted his engineer to the off-track move, noting that Norris had already been given a black and white flag, a final warning for exceeding track limits. As a fourth stroke, this would result in a five-second penalty, which was only imposed after Norris was out of the race.

Norris claimed he had been dropped by Verstappen and continued to attack fearlessly. Verstappen complained on the radio that Norris was ‘dive bombing’, and in the media he described the moves as ‘just sending in too late and hoping the other guy stays out and you make the corner, which wasn’t the case’. the case.”

Norris kept the pressure on as the stewards investigated the breach of track limits and returned to action four laps later in the same corner. This time the Red Bull went off the track. He stayed in front, prompting a radio complaint from Norris, who had already called Verstappen out for illegal movement while braking (moving sideways while decelerating). Verstappen said he was forced to leave. Classic gamesmanship from both.

And then, on lap 64, the collision happened. Verstappen covered the inside and pinched Norris, his car drifted slightly to the left. The side impact caused damage and a long crawl back to the pits. Verstappen recovered to finish fifth, while Norris was forced to retire. Mercedes’ George Russell took victory, followed by Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz.

Racing fast or over the limit?

Before his current dominant run, Verstappen made his name in F1 with a hard, no-holds-barred approach to wheel-to-wheel racing. If a driver fights him, it’s no surprise what he gets in return.

“I expect a tough fight against Max, I know what to expect,” said Norris. “I expect aggression and pushing the boundaries and things like that. But all three times he does things that could easily cause an incident.’ He added that he was “in a sense not surprised” by the collision, but was disappointed that he did not race “hard, honestly, respectfully and on the cutting edge” in the battle for victory. “There are times when I think he goes a little too far,” Norris added.

Verstappen denied crossing a line and claimed he had not moved while braking. He noted Norris’s “dive-bombing” and called the stewards’ 10-second penalty – they said Verstappen was “mostly at fault” for his shift to the left – “a bit severe”. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner described it as a racing incident. “Max is a hard racer and they know that,” he said.

Norris’s challenge has revived Verstappen’s dormant love for hard racing. (James Sutton – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Verstappen is a hard racer, yes. That’s partly why this would always happen. He hasn’t been pushed like this since the height of his battle against Hamilton in 2021. Now Norris and McLaren have a package that can not only challenge Verstappen, but beat him, leading to a return of these more aggressive on-track tactics, which This is more likely to result in incidents like this.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said the stewards should have shown Verstappen the black and white warning flag if he moved under braking, as this would have made the Red Bull driver “much more careful in closing the door on Lando.”

“It’s a great fight, but there’s no need to act so desperately,” Stella said. “You don’t have to think that the world will end when the overtaking maneuver of the car behind is completed.”

Was it inevitable? Horner used that word twice after the race. “You might see this building for a few races,” he said. “At some point, something was going to get close between the two.”

Verstappen didn’t want to think like that. “It’s never how I thought about things,” he said. “But in close combat, sometimes things happen that you never want to happen.”

Will Norris and Verstappen clear the air?

The clash in Austria is a flashpoint in the competitive and personal relationship between Norris and Verstappen, who are currently one step ahead of the rest of the pack in F1, as was so clearly seen in Sunday’s race.

The pair have shared many cool-down rooms and press conferences over the past 12 months, regularly joking and bantering. Now there is a tension that showed little sign of easing in the heat of the immediate aftermath of the collision. Norris wasn’t interested in being the one to extend an olive branch or clear the air. “It’s not for me to say,” he said. “It’s up to him to say that.”

Verstappen said there would be a chance for them to talk, but it was “not the right time” and it was “better to cool down.” He said they did not plan to travel back to Monaco together, as they have done after other races this season.

Verstappen said he hoped it would not damage their relationship. “We are all drivers, you don’t want to crash into each other,” he said. “When you’re fighting for the lead, it’s always tough battles. It happened today. It’s always a shame. I’m annoyed, he’s annoyed. I think that’s fair.”

Verstappen is right when he says that there will come a good time for reconciliation. You can already predict the shared Instagram post of the two laughing together, a sign to the world that all is well. Friends again.

But as long as the margins between Norris and Verstappen on the track remain so small and we see such intense battles more often, their dynamics will continue to be tested.

Which, after so long without that kind of competitive advantage, is an exciting prospect for F1.

(Main image: Rudy Carezzevoli, ERWIN SCHERIAU/APA/AFP via Getty Images)