Alex Kalinauckas and Stuart Codling dive into the media day drama, with McLaren instigating a Right of Review over Lando Norris’ five-second United States GP penalty.

0:00 Intro

0:34 What is happening?

2:13 Previous examples

5:21 Drivers’ opinions

7:13 Gravel traps at COTA

8:41 Perez reflects on his 2024 season

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Lando Norris accepted that Max Verstappen’s sole job for the rest of the 2024 Formula 1 season is to beat him in races, and that his own role is to return the favour without being “over-ambitious”. 

Red Bull found greater performance in the United States Grand Prix thanks to a floor upgrade, which helped Verstappen to victory in the Austin sprint race – his first race win in F1 since the Spanish GP in June.

Following Norris’ five-second penalty for passing Verstappen off the road at Turn 12, the Dutchman was again classified above the Briton to ensure he extended his championship lead to 57 points.

Norris said that Verstappen has placed much less importance on victories and has now focused on simply beating whatever he does, which might require “little changes” to the McLaren driver’s manner on track.

“We saw Max didn’t care if he won or was second or third, his only job was to beat me and he did that – so he did a good job from that side,” Norris explained.

“I had a lot of fun and I respected the battle that we had. He still ended up on top and I need to be beating him. So some little things I need to change but I don’t need to change my whole approach.

“I am still staying clear and avoiding collisions which a lot of things that we have done could have been or turned into worse things like bigger crashes. I avoid them and therefore races could’ve ended earlier than they have.

“Getting caught up in collisions like Turn 1 or Turn 12 could’ve easily been that he’s in a much more powerful position than I’m in, so it’s up to me and the team to try to overcome that.”

Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Norris suggested that it was “too easy” to suggest that he should have awarded the place back to Verstappen, explaining that he might not have had another chance to pass owing to the condition of his tyres.

He added that the team supported his point of view over the incident at Austin, stating that he was simply doing what he felt was best at the time.
 
“It is too easy for people to say this [give the place back]. My tyres were getting hotter and hotter and getting away from me more and more,” he said.

“My pace difference to Max was decreasing, so if I let him back past there might not have been a chance to get past him again. 

“I am always just trying to do what I think is best at the time and within the rules which I believe to be correct. 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.”

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Max Verstappen feels the current Formula 1 racing guidelines are overregulated, as he refutes claims that he never intended to make Turn 12 in his United States Grand Prix fight with Lando Norris.

Both Verstappen and Norris went off at Turn 12 on the 52nd lap of the race at Austin when Norris was attempting to overtake the Red Bull driver, and Norris stayed ahead despite getting the change of position completed off-track.

Norris suggested that Verstappen was quite happy not to make the corner and simply aimed to follow a line in the racing guidelines that the car ahead at the apex was entitled to the position.

Verstappen countered his point of view and stated that he always wanted to take the corner correctly, and that it was simply a showcase of hard racing between the two drivers.

He added that defending was made more difficult with the hard tyres, which shifted the grip away from his front axle and made him more cautious on the brakes.

“It’s quite impressive that people can read my mind [with apex tactics]. It’s crazy,” Verstappen said.

“I always try to make the corner, I didn’t want to look for a shortcut, so I don’t even know what to answer to this one. We’ve always said we wanted to race each other hard, that’s what we like to do.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

“It was quite a difficult second stint. I lost a lot of grip on the front axle, it’s very difficult to brake. That’s what made my defence more difficult, because I know that if I braked a little bit too late, I would lock up and I really didn’t have the front grip.

“It wasn’t easy for me out there. I think all in all we still had a positive weekend for us, but still a few things of course that we want to do better, to be in that fight.

“I honestly believed, going into the race, that I would be in the fight, and we weren’t, so that wasn’t ideal. But at least it did show some promising signs that maybe we could be back in the fight.”

Verstappen joked that the rules of engagement were becoming so complex that he needed the handbook with him during the race, noting that it was becoming much more involved in recent years.

However, he accepted that removing the rules would result in calls for greater vigilance from the stewards over potential incidents. He added that he had “no concerns” about his driving being addressed in a future meeting with the other drivers.

“I think we are getting to a stage where I always need the book in the car! If you look of course over the years, the book has grown quite a lot,” Verstappen said.

“It is definitely overregulated, but then I can see the other point of if we take rules away, and there’s again an incident… ‘Oh, you need more rules! We need to be strong about this!’

“It’s always the same thing. In the past, we have maybe less rules, and you have the same argument: ‘You know, we need to be strong on this, on that’. It’s always the same story.”