Lando Norris described Max Verstappen’s driving in the Mexican Grand Prix as “not very clean” after his rival earned two ten second penalties for forcing him off track.
Norris finished second behind Carlos Sainz Jnr in the Mexican Grand Prix after moving ahead of Charles Leclerc in the later laps after the Ferrari driver made an error at the final corner.However, Norris had lost his position to Leclerc in the early phase of the race after appearing to have been pushed off track by Norris at turn eight.
“It was a very tough race,” Norris said. “The first few laps, a lot of it was just trying to stay in the race and avoid any crashes. But Carlos drove a very good race, so congratulations to Carlos and Ferrari. They were very quick today. So I tried. I tried my best.”
Verstappen was hit with two 10-second time penalties after the stewards deemed him to have forced off Norris off the track twice in one lap. After their controversial incident last weekend in Austin, Norris said he “knew what to expect” from Verstappen as he attempted to pass his championship rival.
“I didn’t want to expect such a thing, because I respect Max a lot as a driver, but I was ready to expect something like this,” he said.
“This is not very clean driving, in my opinion. But I avoided it and it was a good race.”
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McLaren team principal Zak Brown expressed his disappointment at the penalties awarded to Verstappen, saying that they were “not enough.”
“It’s getting a bit ridiculous,” he told Sky. “I applaud the stewards. Enough is enough. Let’s just have some good, clean racing moving forward.
“I think the stewards are on it. I think that’s clear by the penalties that they assessed. So I don’t think we need to do anything. Just let the stewards do their job. They did a good job this weekend.”
Norris has gained ten points in his pursuit of Verstappen in the championship, moving his deficit to 47 points with four rounds remaining. The McLaren driver says he will “just keep my head down,” over the remainder of the season.
“I’m doing my best,” he said. “We’re doing a very good job as a team. I think today we are probably the quickest in the end. But I will keep my head down, that’s all I can do for now. Focus on ourselves and we keep pushing.”
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2024 Mexican Grand Prix
- McLaren have no regrets over pitting Norris shortly before red flag came out
- Leclerc fined, avoids same penalty as Verstappen after apologising for swearing
- Leclerc not in the clear over swearing as Verstappen claims he went unpunished
- Majority of drivers wanted racing rules to change “straight away” – Russell
- Verstappen was “over the limit” with Norris but others would do same – Leclerc
Paul (@frankjaeger)
27th October 2024, 22:30
It seems like after last weekend and the driver’s meeting, the pitlane is becoming savvy to Max’s dirty driving. I think even Sainz mentioned it in his victory speech. The whole weekend has been peppered by drivers speaking up about Max’s behaviour on track. Hopefully this is a turning point. It was clear in 2021 that Max was a dirty driver and it’s a miracle Lewis came out unscathed in their races leading up to the farce that was Abu Dhabi 2021
Doh
28th October 2024, 0:15
All the drivers and teams, the media and most fans showed that they are fickle back then. They couldn’t call it out back then they couldn’t even call out what happened in Abu Dhabi. No regard respect for their comments now. What a disgrace of a sport
Doh
28th October 2024, 0:15
If it even can be called one
Julio Hormaeche
28th October 2024, 2:27
100% agree.
Jere (@jerejj)
27th October 2024, 22:32
They couldn’t be more right.
BLS (@brightlampshade)
27th October 2024, 22:36
I know Zak will get a lot of flack, but what can he do? He knows there’s a driver out there that would rather collide than be passed by Norris but the only ones who can stop it at the stewards. All he can do is try and pressure the authorities which many will only see as moaning. But what’s the other options?
Ajaxn
27th October 2024, 22:50
You’ve got that right. Verstappen aka Schumacher mk2, knows if he and Norris tangles and they both go off, he stays ahead. Verstappen will do whatever it takes to stay ahead.
Craig
29th October 2024, 13:48
2 drivers who I loved at the beginning of their career and slowly began to loath the longer they remained driving. Max does anything to win/not be overtaken as did Schumacher. That’s called being “driven” and “focused on what they want”. It shouldn’t be applauded and is dangerous to other drivers. Schumacher will always have a * next to his name in most peoples eyes because of Australia 1994, Jerez 1997, Monaco 2006 and when he tried to convert Rubens into an advertising banner at Hungary I think it was later in his career. Max is the same as was Senna. All of which are classed as great “great drivers….but…”. He is threatening to leave the sport, whilst he is a fast driver, I think the sport would be better off without him. We still have loose cannons here but none that says “you are going to stay behind me or I’m gonna try and take you out if you try and pass me”.
Edvaldo
27th October 2024, 22:42
If they decide to be this tough with him for the remaining races, he might lose this championship.
If he hadn’t seen red when he saw Norris coming, he would’ve finished 4th today and limited the damage.
But sometimes he can’t help himself.
Doh
28th October 2024, 0:17
He got very very lucky in Austria, and even in Hungary and the last two races also. Two pointless races for redbull and two wins for landonwould be great.
knightameer (@knightameer)
28th October 2024, 7:30
Max actually limited the damage by doing this stuff. He finished 6th to Lando’s 2nd, dropping 10 points. If he had finished 4th, and Lando 1st(He clearly had the pace advantage), Max would have dropped 13 points .
asz
28th October 2024, 9:36
Funny how everyone seems to be oblivious to this aspect.
Max could hardly care less about the opinion of others regarding his driving. See his nonchalant answer to whether “there was anything about the two incidents he would do differently in the future” in another article.
He knows that he can finish 5th or 6th at worst on any track, evidently even with multiple 10-second penalties received, so for the remaining races his main objective is to prevent Norris from winning and thus depriving him of the truly worrying amount of 25 points per race. Yesterday his first lap driving, and the fact that he ultimately stayed ahead of Norris for quite some time, ensured this kind of damage limitation.
No matter how many people will be up in arms about his driving, it was, at the end of the day, mission accomplished from his point of view.
Ajaxn
27th October 2024, 22:46
And about time too.
Everyone turned a blind eye when it was Verstappen vs Hamilton since back then the majority wanted change at any cost.
But now Verstappen finds himself in the same boat, where his torpedo tactics simply doesn’t cut it as intelligent driving.
iFuel
27th October 2024, 22:49
Verstappen’s driving doesn’t bother anyone when he is 30s clear of the rest of the field, but everytime he has to fight for positions with everyone else, this happens.
Doh
28th October 2024, 0:18
Fake champion
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
27th October 2024, 23:25
If Verstappen doesn’t do that, Norris would have gone to win the race, he has no choice. My proposal: scrap the 5 seconds penalty rule and bring back drive through penalties for everything as it used to be.
J.R. Love (@dermechaniker)
28th October 2024, 0:00
I totally agree. I don’t like how the penalties’ punishments are “put off” to when the team determines a pit stop is required. The fact that VER was able to co time i.e. to hold position and affect NOR race via crafty racecraft until the penalties were served seems wrong.
With the nonsense he displayed today, I’d loved a 10 second stop go served within 3 laps to get him out of the way of NOR and to remove any options he had for affecting the outcome of the race from his being able to hold onto the 3rd place he didn’t earn.
J.R. Love (@dermechaniker)
28th October 2024, 0:00
continue*
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
28th October 2024, 0:09
@markwebber – he could have defended as much as possible. At some point, if you can’t defend you can’t use your car as a weapon. If you have to lose, you lose. You can’t kill the other driver because you don’t want to lose.
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
28th October 2024, 1:03
Even Rosberg, who wasn’t particularly aggressive, ended up trying to force his rival off the track when the stakes were high. There is no F1 driver who will sit back while the championship slips through his fingers. It’s wrong to break the rules, but I can’t judge the spirit.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
28th October 2024, 2:54
@markwebber Rosberg was a very aggressive competitor. Here’s Alonso’s famous quote about ‘leaving the space’ which apparently should be mandatory viewing by stewards pre-race.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=637606963759786
SteveP
28th October 2024, 20:37
Rosberg learned a lot of things from his previous teammate, not all of them sit on the positive side of the scales.
SpaFrancorchamps (@spafrancorchamps)
28th October 2024, 14:13
@markwebber I totally agree. Penalties should return back to how they were. Drive throughs and stop and go’s. 10 second time penalty should be the lowest they can get for small offences. You make a mistake, you own up to it and it will hurt you. It will change how they race.
lynn-m
27th October 2024, 23:53
I wonder how the modern show over sport fans would react to some of the hard, aggressive racing from the past.
Some stuff which at the time was seen as good racing would likely have fans whining constantly today with penalties handed out for 90% of it because you can’t have that today.
It’s honestly quite pathetic that the show that used to be a sport has fallen as far as it has.
Would actually really be interesting to do a feature looking back at racing from the past and see what modern fans think of it.
Villeneuve/Arnox from Dijon ’79, Berger/Mansell from Mexico ’90 (Bergers divebomb at T1), Schumacher/Hill from Spa ’95 to name a few.
I bet most would be screaming for penalties because that sort of good racing isn’t allowed anymore because the show needs a villain & the show needs things to be more controversial than those same moments would have been in decades past.
slowmo (@slowmo)
28th October 2024, 0:09
That was not good racing by any metric by Max. The penalties were both justified and 30 years ago would have been a drive through at minimum probably upgraded to a 10s stop and go for 2 bits of poor driving in one lap
S
28th October 2024, 8:27
You may or may not realise, but F1 has always been a show. One thing which helped create that show element in the past was indeed the aggression shown by competitors on-track – much of which is necessarily outlawed in today’s F1, in the wider sporting community and even the world in general.
I wonder if you’ve ever looked at this the other way – how great would/could those historic battles have been if they happened in today’s version of F1…
Also worth noting that they were very rare back then, as the vast majority of F1 interest relied on the raw spectacle of the extreme machinery itself and not the on-track competition.
And anyway – what is wrong with calling for penalties when clear rule-breaches occur in a regulated ‘sports’ competition?
That’s exactly what the rules are there for; to provide the framework for what the ‘sport’ actually is.
They did have rules back then too – they just didn’t apply them very well.
Kribana (@krichelle)
28th October 2024, 0:24
And this time you used it against him. And this time the driver with the cool head won. If Verstappen keeps this up, I wonder if Mclaren might ask Norris to do the same and attempt to get a DSQ for Verstappen.
Chaitanya
28th October 2024, 1:00
The day FIA legalized brake testing was the day officially the condoned dirty driving and things never change.
w0o0dy (@w0o0dy)
28th October 2024, 6:48
Norris is being a hypocrite here. He knows he went into turn4 much faster than was possible and got the referee to give a penalty. 15+km/h faster into the corner than on the fastest lap he did in the race with an extra 70kg of fuel onboard. Norris wasn’t making that corner either way within the lines… So 10s is disproportionate and the stewards screwed up yet again.
Sham (@sham)
28th October 2024, 7:09
It’s quite clear from the footage, that until Lando bailed out, went over the grass and immediately gave the place back to Sainz, he was not only ahead, but easily able to make the corner.
Which is how you race – the exact opposite of Max.
Mayrton
29th October 2024, 12:54
Don’t bring that up. It doesn’t fit the narrative! You have seen what British media have done the whole of last week. They made a completely clear situation and non issue a very big thing. With that they reached and influenced a lot of British people, amongst which a steward…. and it resulted in 20sec penalty for Verstappen, by far one of the most inconsistent enforcement this season. This is exactly why they do the exaggeration and keep Max bashing. It works. It is their instrument since their drivers aren’t cut out to do it on own merit.
Craig
29th October 2024, 14:02
@Mayrton. It’s not the British media at fault here, they all said Lando deserved his penalty last weekend, so the bias is clearly not there. You can see the clips on Youtube if you need affirmation of that.
Personally I agree with 19 of the 20 drivers in that the rule is silly, I don’t think either should have gotten a penalty.
The problem is is that Max has been consistently being blatant that “you don’t overtake or I’m going to do all to stop you including taking us both out”, look at Baku with Ricciardo.
Its about Max moving in breaking zones, forcing other drivers into unsafe situations, and generally being far too hot headed. He’s a very fast driver, you cannot take that away from him, but he is not a good racer. He needs to cool it, but if he says I’m not changing then maybe he does need to rethink his time in F1.
SteveP
29th October 2024, 17:58
Oooh that’s new, I thought you guys were nailed on the narrative that Mr Herbert hates Verstappen and therefore wouldn’t need any influencing.
Still, they do say variety is the spice of life.
Just out of interest, do you think perhaps the 19 drivers in favour of penalising these divebomb tactics (MV being the obvious stand-out) might have had more effect than the gutter press? Or does that not fit your narrative?
Palindnilap (@palindnilap)
28th October 2024, 6:56
Since the turn 8 incident was almost a carbon copy of what happened last week, now McLaren definitely has a new element to bring for reviewing the US GP decision. Oh, they cannot because it has already been rejected ? And they had to do it within 96 hours ? Catch-22 !
VIETVET
29th October 2024, 0:00
I watch F1 for the kind of entertainment that’s a bit easier to come by than having to use precision measurement instruments and a lawyer’s interpretation of the fourth indent of some regulation which happened to change last week. For me, Max said it best when he commented that he now needs a rule book in car. What a great remark! Furthermore, the best value gauge of any racing move – tragedy excluded – is the announcer’s decibel level when things like this happen. And boy do they love to get loud. In other words, precise driving and dirty driving are both part of the game and one without the other leads to seventy laps of predictable boredom. Does this sound like I’m comparing F1 to, say, professional wrestling? Yeah. I suppose so.
Mayrton
29th October 2024, 12:49
Very few care what Brown thinks.
Craig
29th October 2024, 14:12
With that comment then all of the opinions of Team Leaders should be disregarded as Horner and Wolf do it as much as Brown. We all have our favourites but we all need to realise that there are politics and manipulation if all forms of sport.
With regards to a rule book in the car comment, if your Sport is your job, your career, you should know all rules in the book. It is your job, why shouldn’t you know the rules of your job. Rules change, learn them, understand them, and obey them. It is what you do for a living after all. The rules suited Max last week, doesn’t suit him this week. Suited him in 2021 Abu Dabi, doesn’t suit him tomorrow. It ebbs and flows.