Max Verstappen and Lando Norris crash on lap 64 in the Austrian Formula 1 GP. The accident, which put both drivers out of contention for victory and earned Verstappen ten penalty seconds plus two penalty points, cannot be viewed in isolation. Red Bull has a clear opinion: a penalty was not necessary here.
“No, not the ten seconds,” says motorsport consultant Dr. Helmut Marko. “For me, the way they drove was a sports accident.” After Norris had come within striking distance thanks to a bad second Red Bull stop and a mistake by Verstappen, he had already made two extremely aggressive attacks on the inside of Turn 3, forcing Verstappen off the track.
Accident involving Verstappen and Norris was already foreseeable
“One has a sure victory in sight and is suddenly confronted with a tough pursuer, the other sees the chance to win the race,” Marko analyzes to Motorsport-Magazin.com. “And it’s made even worse by these three DRS zones here and these straights, where you have almost no chance if you’re in front.”
“In my opinion, both drivers overdid it,” is Marko’s conclusion. Much more sober than the heated opinions of the two drivers directly after the race. Norris was firmly of the opinion that Verstappen had already been guilty of misconduct by making late movements in the braking zone. Verstappen denied all responsibility for this and for the accident itself.
“I think Lando wanted to make up for yesterday,” suspects Red Bull team boss Christian Horner and refers to the sprint. In that, Norris also fought with Verstappen, overtook him cleanly, but then left the door too wide open for a counterattack and lost first place again.
“It was foreseeable, you could probably see how things had been building up over the last few races,” Horner believes. “That things would get close between the two at some point.” In Canada and Barcelona, the two also fought for victory, albeit from a bit further away. The Austrian weekend offered the first really tough confrontations and duels.
Taken out because of Norris penalty? Not with Max Verstappen
Horner’s only regret is that Norris had already committed four track limit violations at the time of the collision. The stewards issued a five-second penalty shortly afterwards, in accordance with the standard offense. On paper, this would have given Red Bull the option of defusing the confrontation by communicating to Verstappen that he should have let Norris pass without danger and should have stayed just five seconds behind him.
Marko waves it off: “Who tells him that? A Verstappen should let him pass because he gets a five-second penalty? No, if he had accepted that ad hoc in the tense atmosphere, then he wouldn’t be Max Verstappen.”
But that doesn’t mean that the two good friends Verstappen and Norris can’t reconcile soon. At least that’s how Horner sees it: “Maybe they won’t play padel tomorrow, but they’ll definitely talk about it. They’re two tough racers, they talk openly about things, I have no doubt about that.”
Max Verstappen also expects a resolution with Norris. But he will probably also have to clarify some things with his team, whom he is more critical of after the race than his opponent in the accident. You can find more from Verstappen here: