Lando Norris has admitted he now expects Max Verstappen to come at him with potentially illegal driving moves after the pair went wheel to wheel at the Mexico City Grand Prix and that the Dutchman, who he said had not offered a “clean fight”, had deserved the penalties he was given.
Verstappen was twice penalised for what were deemed unacceptable moves, in both defence and attack, against Norris early in the race. The world championship leader was given two 10-second penalties for the incidents and subsequently finished sixth, with Norris second. Verstappen had been similarly aggressive at the last round in Austin and Norris was disappointed his title rival was choosing to drive in such an uncompromising fashion.
“Today was not fair, clean racing,” Norris said. “Therefore he got what he had coming to him.”
The British driver felt Verstappen knew that with a 57-point advantage in the championship standings before the race, he could afford to take risks at his expense.
“Today I felt like I had to avoid collisions and that’s not what you want to do in a race,” he said. “He is in a very powerful position in the championship. He is a long way ahead and he has nothing to lose. He knows how to drive and I am sure he knows today was probably over the limit.”
Verstappen admitted he felt the lack of performance in the Red Bull had pushed him into being more combative on track. “The problem is when you are slower you are being put in these kind of positions, I am not going to give up easily,” he said.
“At the end of the day it’s not about agreeing or disagreeing about the penalty. The biggest problem of today is the race pace, which is not good, and something we need to analyse. Because even without those penalties we had no chance at all to fight out front.”
The McLaren CEO, Zak Brown, was blunt and unequivocal that Verstappen in fact deserved further sanction when asked if the penalties were sufficient. “Probably not enough,” he said. “It’s getting a bit ridiculous. I applaud the FIA stewards, enough is enough, let’s have some good, clean racing going forward.”
