“Inevitable”: The first real F1 battle between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris ends in tears

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SPIELBERG, Austria — Over the past three seasons, the mixture of Max Verstappen and the Red Bull automotive has proven so strong that the remainder of the Formula One field has rarely been capable of pose a serious challenge.

And that has modified in the previous few races.

Lando Norris took the win in Miami, caught up with Verstappen late in Imola and will have won in Canada and Spain, but small mistakes cost him the win. At no point did he really have raced Verstappen. Their friendship, flying and playing paddle tennis together, has remained strong.

But on Sunday on the Austrian Grand Prix, the inevitable happened: Verstappen and Norris had an actual race, a tricky race, and it resulted in a collision that may test the bond between the 2.

“It was just a little bit reckless,” Norris said within the press room after the race, dejected that his probability to win had been snatched from him. “It seemed like he was a little bit desperate.”

How Red Bull got Verstappen into trouble

It was an accident that basically shouldn't have happened. Verstappen was in full control until his pit stop on lap 51 of 71. His only minor annoyances were the traffic, the shortage of blue flags when lapping and a slower pit stop.

But a second, terribly slow pit stop by Red Bull, the sleekest and fastest team on the F1 grid, left Verstappen in trouble. A stop that normally takes around two seconds lasted 6.5 seconds due to an issue with the fastening of the left rear wheel nut, which cost Norris the lead.

One fight, two different perspectives 🗣️🗣️#F1 #AustrianGP pic.twitter.com/5aUbIoTVG4

— Formula 1 (@F1) June 30, 2024

Verstappen remained calm within the press area after the race, appearing more disillusioned with Red Bull's performance than the collision itself. He called it a “terrible” race and said the team “got a lot of things wrong today.” He pointed to the strategy that left him struggling in traffic, in addition to the “catastrophic” pit stops. “You give free lap time, six seconds over those two pit stops, and then of course it's a race again,” Verstappen said. “That's why we put ourselves in this position.”

Adding to the issue for Verstappen was that he had a rather used set of medium tyres as a substitute of the fresh set Norris was capable of run, giving the McLaren a grip advantage. As they weaved through traffic, Norris could easily stay inside DRS range of Verstappen and plan his attack.

Aggression meets aggression

“If it's necessary and the time comes to face him, I will do it 100 percent.”

Norris' promise in an interview with The athlete Suzuka was all the time going to be a challenge in some unspecified time in the future. And he quickly made up for that along with his attacks on Verstappen.

On lap 59, Norris made his first try and overtake Verstappen at the highest of the hill at Turn 3, a large corner with loads of room for an inside attack. Norris briefly took the lead but then went off target and Verstappen overtook him again on the strategy to Turn 4. Verstappen immediately alerted his engineer to the off-track run and noticed that Norris had already been shown a black and white flag, a final warning for exceeding track limits. As a fourth offence, this might incur a five-second penalty, which was only imposed after Norris had retired from the race.

Norris claimed he had been pushed off the track by Verstappen and continued to attack undeterred. Verstappen complained over the radio that Norris was “dive-bombing” and within the press he described the maneuvers as “just starting late and hoping that the other guy stays out of it and you make the corner, which wasn't the case.”

Norris kept the pressure on while race control investigated the track limit violation, and 4 laps later tried one other maneuver at the identical corner. This time the Red Bull went off the track. He stayed in front, prompting a radio grievance from Norris, who had already reprimanded Verstappen for illegal movement under braking (moving sideways while decelerating). Verstappen said he was forced off the track. Classic tactic from each of them.

And then, on lap 64, the collision occurred. Verstappen stayed on the within and pushed Norris, whose automotive drifted barely to the left. Both suffered damage from the side collision and needed to drive back to the pits for a very long time. Verstappen recovered and finished fifth, while Norris needed to retire. The win went to George Russell of Mercedes, followed by Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz.

Hard racing or over the limit?

Before his current dominance, Verstappen made a reputation for himself in F1 for his tough, no-holds-barred approach to wheel-to-wheel racing. When a driver goes up against him, it's no surprise what he gets in return.

“I expect a tough fight against Max, I know what to expect,” said Norris. “I expect aggression and pushing the limits and things like that. But all three times he does things that can easily lead to an incident.” He added that he was “not surprised in some ways” by the collision, but was disillusioned that the fight for the win didn’t see “a tough, fair, respectful, borderline race.” “There are moments when I think he goes a little bit too far,” added Norris.

Verstappen denied crossing a line and claimed he didn’t move in the course of the struggle under braking. He noted Norris' “dive” and called the 10-second time penalty imposed by race control – they said Verstappen was “mainly at fault” as a consequence of his left-drift – “a bit harsh”. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner described it as a racing accident. “Max is a tough racer and they know that,” he said.

Verstappen is a tricky racer, yes. That's one in all the the reason why this was all the time going to occur. He hasn't been put under this much pressure for the reason that height of his battle with Hamilton in 2021. Now Norris and McLaren have a package that cannot only challenge Verstappen but beat him, resulting in a return of those more aggressive on-track tactics which might be more more likely to result in incidents like this.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella believed that race control must have shown Verstappen a black and white warning flag for stopping while braking, as this might have made the Red Bull driver “significantly more cautious when he let Lando go first”.

“It's a big fight, but there's no reason to act so desperately,” said Stella. “You don't have to think that the world will end when the overtaking maneuver of the car behind is completed.”

Was it inevitable? Horner used that word twice after the race. “You could see this developing for maybe a couple of races,” he said. “At some point there was going to be something close between the two.”

Verstappen didn't need to think like that. “I've never thought about things like that,” he said. “But in close duels, sometimes things happen that you never want.”

Will Norris and Verstappen ensure clean air?

The duel in Austria is a flashpoint within the competition and private relationship between Norris and Verstappen, who appear to be one step ahead of the remainder of the F1 field in the intervening time, as Sunday's race clearly showed.

The two have shared many cooling-off rooms and press conferences over the past 12 months, usually joking and chatting. There is a tension now that has shown little sign of cooling in the warmth of the clash's immediate aftermath. Norris was not involved in being the one to make a peace offering or attempt to clear the air. “I can't say that,” he said. “He has to say that.”

Verstappen said there can be a possibility for them to speak but it surely was “not the right moment” and it was “better to cool down”. He said they’d already not planned to travel back to Monaco together as they’d done after other races this season.

Verstappen said he hoped it didn't damage their relationship. “We're all racing drivers, of course you don't want to crash into each other,” he said. “When you're fighting for the lead, it's always tough battles. That's what happened today. It's always a shame. I'm upset, he's upset. I think that's fair.”

Verstappen is correct that there shall be a right moment for reconciliation. This can already be seen within the joint Instagram post of the 2, by which they smile together, an indication to the world that all the pieces is OK. Friends again.

But so long as the gaps between Norris and Verstappen on the track remain so small and we see such intense duels an increasing number of often, their dynamics will proceed to be put to the test.

And that's an exciting prospect for Formula 1 after so long without such a competitive advantage.