Before the collision between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, both drivers were complaining about the other’s driving style. How did you view the ‘dive bombs’ that Verstappen was complaining about?
Alexander Wurz: A ‘dive bomb’ is not forbidden in itself. It is definitely spectacular and also very brave. You have to face the consequences if you do it like that. But I am a person who likes to see the drivers racing hard. I always tend a bit more towards the ‘let them race’ approach.
In that respect – and I’ve probably come to your next question – I think the penalty against Verstappen was too harsh. I would have seen a classic racing incident here. Both of them punished themselves. But it’s not about the punishment, but rather this very slight pull to the left: there was still plenty of room there. Lando could have prevented the accident. It was actually unnecessary and overheated on both sides. I would have been happier if they had fought hard in the next few laps. But now they’ve collided, so we can talk a lot about that. For me it wasn’t a penalty.
Back to the ‘dive bombs’: If you are the one on the outside and you simply cannot turn because the other driver on the inside goes so far – is it still fair if you let the driver on the outside starve like that?
Alexander Wurz: If the inside guy simply slides over, but you are under control on the outside, then you can do the undercut against the guy who is coming with the ‘dive bomb’ and then drive out the back again. If he brakes so hard that you can’t do the undercut, then he has timed it sensationally and has simply used his grip advantage. Kamui Kobayashi was also a master of the ‘dive bomb’: he positioned himself in such a way that the guy on the outside no longer knew what was happening to him. But he knew he couldn’t turn. But Kamui always made the turns. And I think that’s actually absolutely OK. Hard, but OK. That shouldn’t be punished or banned.
How should we assess Norris’s action when he turned in after the first collision and hit Verstappen again?
Alexander Wurz: I think he wanted to somehow get around the corner. Both of them were already sliding towards the white line and it was just a case of ‘I want to somehow get around the corner’. I don’t think he wanted to deliberately drive into him. I don’t think he had enough reaction time for that either.
The collision certainly had a history that went beyond the race. Did Norris want to show his strength after his recent defeats?
Alexander Wurz: In this situation, neither of them had the end of the race, nor the World Championship standings, not points, not victory, were their primary concern. They thought to themselves: I want to beat the other one in this corner here and now at all costs and show who is top dog. That has to happen sometimes. That can happen sometimes. If you are sensible, it shouldn’t happen. But nobody showed any sense in that second and it is nice that they are human and that we can experience that now too. Because they are the main protagonists, they are writing the story of this Formula 1 year and for me that was primarily a matter of mutual staking.
Do you think this will change anything? So far, Lando has always been the one who has come up short…
Alexander Wurz: That depends on the race situation. If you haven’t done anything really dramatic in the World Championship, or in the race, you’ll be back in this personal duel. But of course you’ll be thinking more about the finish next time. But that’s something you can talk about in an interview, you always have to see it in the heat of the moment. But the whole thing has a long history and it’s not over yet.
Not only Verstappen was penalized, Norris was too. He got five seconds because he left the track four times without justifiable reason. The last violation came about because he misjudged the overtaking maneuver. Do such actions really have to be seen as track limit violations?
Alexander Wurz: No, I don’t think so. You shouldn’t confuse track limit for ‘Gaining a Lasting Advantage’ with fighting hard and then slipping out a bit. That shouldn’t even be registered as a track limit. If you lose time, then I don’t need to think about whether it was a Lasting Advantage.
But you have to be careful because there are hidden advantages. It could be that when you are fighting, you deliberately act as if you were preventing an accident and pull out, which actually gives you an advantage – even though you initially misjudged the position you should be in when going into the corner. You have to see through it. But in the case with Lando Norris, I didn’t see it that way and wouldn’t have considered it a track limit in itself.
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella believes that these scenes give plenty of reason to clarify things. He fears an escalation of the situation and warns of a second 2021. Do you see a similar need for clarification or is he exaggerating?
Alexander Wurz: I understand his way of thinking and would like to add that we obviously have to talk about it. The key stakeholders have to deal with it. But I would warn against over-regulation, that we try to break down every single specific case into commas, full stops and commas. Then we will simply have an over-regulated monster of regulations and descriptions of scenarios. This brings me back to the Let Them Race: at some point, the person who wants to become world champion or win the race has to step back and let the others pass. Nobody wanted that today. And that is the emotion that the audience wants to see. You can see that they are just people who get grumpy and overheated sometimes. But at some point we will see the cool heads win again in the end.