Lando Norris and Max Verstappen shed light on their F1 US GP fight plus stewarding, as other drivers opine on the driving guideline situation.
As is always the case with any wheel-to-wheel battle, host of opinion flies around from 20 drivers and even team bosses. It so happened after the run-in between McLaren’s Norris and Red Bull’s Verstappen towards the end of F1 US GP last weekend at the Circuit of the Americas.
Having barged his way through Norris on Lap 1, Verstappen was found defending third against the Brit towards the end of the grand prix. Despite the multiple attempts, the McLaren driver couldn’t push though until a last try at Turn 12 when he went around the outside in the corner.
Both went off but Norris took the position and crossed the chequered flag in third. However, he was handed a 5s time penalty for gaining an advantage and lost the place to Verstappen. They argued that the Dutchman too went off, but they couldn’t challenge the decision then.
They have now placed a right of review and will need new evidence to overturn the decision. The hearing will take place in Mexico with a decision expected by the end of Friday. While that goes behind the scenes, both Norris and Verstappen put out different views when speaking to media.
While Norris didn’t outright question Verstappen, but he indicated the way the Dutchman drives especially in title battles. The Brit isn’t to change his approach and is fine with hard racing, but it is that going over the line, is what he is more concerned about and how it is handled.
Verstappen, though, remains defiant about his style. Host of other drivers chipped in about the penalty and how stewarding is done. They do wish to see changes made, especially on the side of having permanent stewards in the long run, much like how it is in other sporting events.
Approach, situation –
Norris: “It’s not an easy answer. Honestly, it’s not as simple as just saying yes. Do I need to make some changes? Yes, and still adapt a little bit more. But is everything I’m doing wrong? Also, it’s a no. So it’s a tough position to be in because, like we saw, Max didn’t care if he won or second or third. His only job was to beat me, and he did that. So he did a good job from that side, and I had a lot of fun, and I respected the battle that we had, but yeah, he still ended up on top. I need to be beating him – some little things I need to change, but I don’t need to change my own approach.”
Spoken to Verstappen/Norris, racing against –
Norris: “I’ve not spoken to Max at all because he did I guess what he thought was right and I did what I thought was right. I still disagree and as a team we disagree. I think the majority of the people who were watching disagreed with the penalty that I got. But I’ll make the changes that I need to make, whether it’s being more aggressive at times, or less aggressive, or whatever, I’ll do what I think is right. Max is very good at what he does, and he’s probably the best in the world at what he does. So, when I’m going up against the best in the world, it is not going to be an easy thing to do, and he’s been racing in this position for longer than I have. I’m definitely not doing a perfect job, but I’m not doing a bad job. I’m still staying there, I’m avoiding collisions, which a lot of things that we’ve done could have easily been turned into worse things, like bigger crashes and stuff.
“I’ve avoided them and stayed in races which easily could have ended earlier than they have. But no, I think there are certain things I don’t agree with, but I still want to be racing. I don’t want there to be rules for absolutely everything. I just believe the way of how I got a penalty last weekend and the consequence of how that happened, I didn’t agree with, and that’s the only thing I think that needs to be changed, but it’s clear what his intentions are. It’s a difficult route for me to get around, getting caught up in collisions and things like Turn 1 or Turn 12 easily could have been. So he’s in a much more powerful position than I am. It’s up to me, and it’s up to me and the team to change that.”
Verstappen: “We always said that we wanted to race each other hard. That’s what we like to do.”
Stewarding, decisions –
Norris: “I think what we saw with George’s and Bottas’s version in some ways was very similar to ours: I was completely ahead of Max, I was over a car length ahead of him. I was no longer the attacking car, he was. I was ahead of Max, I was having to defend, he was the one attacking me and effectively he has gone in too hard and overtaken off the track. I just maintained my position so it is something I am sure we will discuss as it has been a big talking point since last weekend, not just for us but for everyone. A lot of other drivers didn’t agree with it, teams didn’t agree with it. I don’t think common sense is the correct…it is very difficult to steward such things. Every case is different, none is the same. I think you need to know intent of drivers, you need to understand their thought process and you can only really do that with people who have been drivers and understand racing, because they’ve been in those positions.
“And maybe some people who haven’t driven cars and haven’t raced, maybe they still understand those things. But it is a complicated thing, so I think the decision the stewards kind of came out with, I would say I still don’t agree with. But the general thought process of how they have to apply rules is their job, if it says this by the book then that’s the rule that has to be applied and that’s the penalty that has to be applied, but I think what happened last weekend didn’t fall into those guidelines.”
Verstappen: “I think we are getting to a stage where I almost need a [rule] book in the car. That is how it is. If you look over the years, the book has grown quite a lot with more rules. It is definitely over-regulated, but then I can also see the other point of view of if we take rules away, and there is an incident, it will be, ‘Oh, we need more rules’. You need to be strong on this. It is always the same thing because in the past, if you have fewer rules, you’d have the same argument that we need to be strong on this or that. It is always the same story. I have no concerns [about stewarding]. At the end of the day, it is not my problem.”
Thinking about titles making it harder –
Norris: “For me, they are the same. For me, the better I can do in drivers’, the better we are to do in the constructors’. Both will benefit me in the same way both will negative in the same way. If I try and be over ambitious or do things that put me out of the race, I will lose in both championships. So, I think they are both the same, what’s good is good and what’s bad is bad.”
Outside opinions –
Norris: “It is too easy for people to say this, my tyres were getting hotter and hotter, he was getting away even more, my pace difference to Max was decreasing, so if I look in the past, there might not been a chance to get past him again. Just hindsight and people’s opinion on the outside is very easy. No, I don’t agree with a lot of people, what they said, that might have been my only chance, who knows. I know best, I am in that position, I’ll give my opinion. Sometimes it is right, sometimes it is wrong. I don’t mind if people disagree with my opinion, but I am just trying to do what is best for me at that time, and within the rules that I feel is correct and those kind of things. Sometimes it is difficult, hence why I asked the team ‘what do you guys think?’
“Ideally the stewards would say ‘we don’t think this is right, give the position back,’ that would be a much more simple thing to do, but that’s not how it works. I believed I was in the right, and I asked the team for confirmation and they believed we were in the right. Therefore I’ve continued. I think we are doing a good job as a team; I think our approach is correct, but sometimes you don’t come up on top. I think the point is that he only stayed ahead of me at the apex because he went off the track, he would not have been ahead at the apex if he braked where he should’ve braked and stayed on the track. I think that is obvious at this point.”
You do on purpose –
Verstappen: “Yeah, it’s quite impressive that people can read my mind. It’s crazy. I mean, I always tried to make the corner. I didn’t want to look for a shortcut. I don’t even know what to answer to this bit. [And] I disagree with [George]. At the end of the day, just speak for yourself. Don’t bother too much about other people, just enjoy your life. Don’t think about racing too much.”
What other say on fights, stewarding –
George Russell: “I think it is a very difficult task, at the end of the day, we need to have a regulation, you need to have some sort of guideline especially what we are having different stewards every week, they have a slightly different interpretation. For me, having looked back, I thought my penalty was harsh, probably correct, and looking at Lando’s, it was probably correct as well but Max probably should have also got a penalty for running off the track. For me, the root cause of the problem is having a circuit that allows you to run you wide. And we take Austria last year as an example, you had about 300 track limits problems, they put gravel in and there is no problems. If you put gravel in that corner, Lando doesn’t go off and overtake and Max doesn’t brake that late and go off and overtake. I mean, it is difficult because at the end of the day, there job is to govern and you can’t just let things run wild, because if you let things run wild on track, things will also run wild in the technical side as well.
“Therefore the regulation is getting bigger and bigger, yet teams are still finding ways, they are finding loopholes, you can argue Max’s driving is not against the regulation, it is just finding a bit of a loophole, but equally more complicated these regulation, the harder is to race and apply a little bit of common sense, so it is more my personal view rather than GPDA view, it is a challenging line for all. I don’t think the regulation has said that for every single scenario, it is a very fine line and I think myself personally, I’ll be interested to see if the FIA review it again if Max should have been penalised, for what he did or not. In my view, he should have been penalised, therefore there isn’t really a loophole. If they say he shouldn’t have been, then he is exploiting a loophole. But he is in a title battle with Lando the same way as he was with Lewis and I don’t think he would have done the same manoeuvre if it was any other driver, same as in Brazil 2021.
“I don’t if he will do the same manoeuvre with any other driver. It was a bit do or die, and he is happy to drive in that manner against his title rival, which I totally understand. We are going to sit down after the drivers’ briefing and in anycase, we were trying prior the Austin weekend…of course there is a lot going on at the moment with the swearing situation, I guess we need a talk with the FIA and understand their view first and then we can judge. At the end of the day, the stewards are doing the best job they can, and they are trying their hardest. They do have a set of guidelines which they follow. But maybe we need…we have spoken about consistency in the past, the only way we can consistency is having same stewards every race weekend and at the moment, they are very experienced but they are here as volunteers, it is not a professional paid job. If we look at football as an example, even though there are still controversies, a referee, they are professionals, it is their full-time job, that’s how they are making their income. And as a sport we are, at the moment, that’s the direction we should head.”
Lewis Hamilton: “I mean it’s always been a grey area that’s why [Verstappen’s] got away with it for so long. “I mean, yeah, they probably need to make some adjustments [to the rules] for sure. Also, we do have inconsistencies through rulings, weekend in, weekend out. As a sport, we do need to level up on all areas and if you look at other global sports, they have full-time refs, for example, and I’m sure that wouldn’t be a bad thing for our sport. But yeah, you shouldn’t be able to, I mean, I experienced it many times with Max, you shouldn’t be able to just launch the car on the inside and be ahead and then you go off and still hold your position. So, they need to definitely work on this.”
Carlos Sainz: “I think it depends a lot on the overtake that you look at. There’s a bit of a one outcome or another of a penalty, and what is clear to me after Austin is that we need to review a few incidents, predominantly to understand when to expect a penalty and when not. I think if you read the rule by the book, the way the penalties are applied might be logical if you apply the rulebook, [but] in the way that racing is, I feel like sometimes it’s a bit difficult to apply the rulebook exactly in that manner. I guess we just need to sit down all together, review a few incidents, have the feedback from the stewards of why they took that decision, and have a bit of a clearer picture in my head of what to expect when racing other guys. I’m going to be honest with you, it’s very difficult to think about the guidelines when you’re about to perform an overtake and brake 20 metres later down the inside. You’re not thinking ‘Am I going to make it ahead at the apex?’ [Do I need to] release my brake just to make it? Maybe some drivers do, when I was in Austin going like hell to overtake people, I wasn’t thinking about the guidelines, I was just trying to be aggressive but fair.
“Or what I consider to be fair. And hope the stewards interpret my moves in a fair manner. I think we can keep [talking] about guidelines, but for me until circuits don’t also give us a hand it will be very difficult to erase the problem. I think if you put a gravel trap at the exit of Turn 12 [in Austin], Lando doesn’t think about braking so late and releasing the brake and [isn’t] happy to overtake around the outside because he will lose two seconds and get dirt on the tyres by going round the outside. And Max will think twice about braking so late, risking going in the gravel himself. So if you think about it the solution might be solved itself by circuit standards or circuit modifications, and we keep going around in circles with guidelines that might be easier to solve with certain slight changes to the track, which some tracks have already performed. I try to have that approach, rather than think about the guideline when hitting the brake pedal.”
Valtteri Bottas: “It’s always been pretty clear. No drama there. It’s just that some drivers are pushing the limits of the regulations more and almost taking the piss out of it, but the rules are clear. I thought [Russell’s move] was going to be on the limit. I was kind of 50/50, about it. I didn’t even moan about it in the radio. In the end, they decided what they decide and it didn’t change my race anyway, so I wasn’t too fussed about it. When we’re rotating the stewards, they try to be consistent. They try to follow the guidelines, but it’s not always possible, because every incident or overtake and every track are different. As long as you have different stewards, you will have different opinions, that’s how it goes but I think the FIA knows that is an issue sometimes, and they’re trying to find a solution for the future.”
Yuki Tsunoda: “I feel like they’re expecting us to drive like machines, like AI. In the end, we’re doing racing. That’s why people look at it, battling between drivers is passion. We’re trying to fight each other passionately and if they remove that, it’s just going to be like AI fighting…the one in Abu Dhabi [A2RL]…it’s better to watch that. For sure it’s hard, it’s been a topic in motorsport for years, hopefully, one day we can be aligned closer. Regarding the Austin scene, in that case, it’s better to just launch it into the apex, even if you go off track, and try to be ahead [at the apex], get a priority and make the corner. It’s different, what we’re trying to achieve in the corner and what they’re [the stewards are] thinking I think. It’s hard to be aligned.”
Kevin Magnussen: “The current guidelines isn’t great for racing right now. It’s very sort of restricted and it’s not ideal. You have to ask, do we want the drivers to race each other hard? I think so. That’s my personal opinion [but] they won’t be if they’re at such a high risk of getting a penalty whatever they do.”
Alexander Albon: “You could argue [about] every single overtake, every single defence, every single moment on the circuit but we don’t have these problems when we go to Singapore, we don’t have these problems when we go to Monaco, we don’t have these problems anywhere else we go to. We know that there’s extra track, it’s very easy in both ways. You can always squeeze a driver off and claim it’s your corner. Likewise you can hang it around the outside and claim the person has squeezed you off. It’s what we learnt to do as drivers since we were kids, we know how to play the game and in some ways we know how complicated it is for the FIA to say who is at fault in many ways.”
Pierre Gasly: “New guidelines You say? After Austin? No. Ah, you mean the one previously to Austin. I think Austin highlighted that there is definitely something that’s got to be changed. I think there is the rule as it’s written and there is more the common sense on how you want to approach racing. I think there is this gray area at the moment which allow us drivers to benefit from the regulation in a kind of unfair way of approaching racing. And I think this is something which I guess we all agree and which will be worked on with the FIA on how to improve things because there have been a couple of incidents which got us on a split or with mixed feelings on the decision that came out of it. I think we all need some clarity and a bit better written rules to improve the racing for the future. Regarding Austin, I was impacted by it in the race, so I did look at the replay and yeah, I mean, the way I see it is I think there’s one rule which needs to be changed.
“It’s that front axle at the apex, whoever has got their front axle first at the apex has got the priority, but then how much of a car control you got at that point? because otherwise ultimately you’re just going to end up having situations where you can just divebomb, not committing to the corner, just to make sure you’ve got your front axle at the apex. even if you can’t make the corner that’s going to be your corner. But then you might create other problems that you end up having all cars off the racetrack. And whoever gets the priority doesn’t get penalised, et cetera. So I just think that specific rule, the way it’s written, I get it. That’s the way it is. And at the moment, we’ve got to respect it. Moving forward, this needs a change to allow us to have more fairness in the way we fight. So I think there is this really clear point in the regulation that needs updating.”
Nico Hulkenberg: “I think it’s also a bit track dependent and obviously Austin is, you know, particularly Turn 12 is always, every year it’s one of the hot spots where it happens easily and a lot. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, sometimes it works for you, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s part of racing and we’ll see going forward what we come up with. As for Austin, Of course, if you put a natural deterrent there, it will change the dynamic of the corner. In street circuits, if there’s a wall, it changes things.
“And yeah, I mean, in most sports there are these grey areas. And like I said earlier, I think it’s track dependent. And Austin is always one that brings out that grey area quite a lot. So yeah, maybe that’s one thing, one area we can look into to try and help, particularly that corner, I think Turns 12, 15. But yeah, I didn’t, I obviously saw the replay, but I didn’t spend a great deal looking at, you know, everybody else’s race and analyze the situation I was celebrating our weekend.”
Sergio Perez: “I agree with what Nico just said, I think Austin is really the worst for it in terms of track layout. Turn 1, Turn 12, even Turn 11 can be quite difficult in that regard. So yeah, it can go in your favor or against you. And I think here, for example, it won’t be an issue. I think with 24 races, there is no steward in the world that will be up for the job, first of all. And secondly, I think it’s just a very difficult one because sometimes at the end of the day, the stewards, the two stewards you have can have a different opinion. So you always feel like the decision works against you. What goes around comes around. So it’s always very difficult in these things to have the best decisions. I think ultimately it’s best not to get in trouble.”
Charles Leclerc: “It’s a very, very complex subject, to be completely honest. I don’t have the right answer here. I think common sense needs to be applied in certain situations. When a driver do that multiple times in the same way, at one point… Yeah, we’ve got to still create overtaking opportunities. And what I’ve seen in Austin maybe is a little bit extreme. So we’ve got to look into it. To give one only answer on that subject is difficult because, as I’ve always said, the rule book is done for a thing. However, there will never be enough rules for every specific situation there on track.
“And sometimes you just got to have someone that has done that since many, many years, look at the situation and be honest and deal with it, with the specific situation you have in front of your eyes, There will never be one rule that will define exactly the way we shall race, I think. On these kind of things we are and we are more and more involved. So during the Drivers’ Briefing with the FIA we try and always come up with suggestions and they’re always open to them for the racing side, so this is good.”
Zhou Guanyu: “I think the hardest part, you know, in terms of what’s happening on track, especially what I see in Austin, we always focus the rules saying you have to be, like, say the guy’s making a move on the outside, have to be ahead in the apex, but then the guy inside, of course, he’s going to release the brake, trying to make sure that doesn’t happen. But then if he can’t stop in the white line, you know, it’s really complicated. And to make a rule clear because at the moment I feel, yeah, situation by situation, sometimes we’re still lacking a bit of consistency, but it’s tough when you have a track like that, very much a wide run-off area with various, you know, people can be just making different approach and driving lines as well. So we already, you know, discussed after the weekend, I think there will be further talks together with the drivers also with the FIA to be more clear on that.”
Here’s McLaren filing right of review
Here’s Oscar Piastri, Sergio Perez on US GP
Here’s Red Bull, McLaren on their US GP fight
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