SHOULD VERSTAPPEN HAVE BEEN GIVEN A PENALTY IN AUSTRIA? NORRIS ANSWERS!

After last weekend, it was beyond doubt Lando Norris would have to face and answer questions ahead of his home Grand Prix at Silverstone. The Briton also explained what he thought of the penalty Verstappen received because of their collision, that eventually made Norris DNF.

After Norris and Verstappen made contact in Turn 3 during their battle for the lead, the stewards also looked into the matter, and the Dutchman did receive a 10-second penalty, although the penalty itself did not influence his result. "It's tough. I think sometimes we say it should be, sometimes we say it shouldn't be as drivers. At times you don't want the consequence to be taken into account, but also at times I think it definitely should be taken into account. But it's a very tough one because our incident was so tiny," Norris began to explain at Silverstone.

"So for what it was, I don’t think it should have been a big penalty at all or even if a penalty at the end of the day, but considering it put me out of the race and took me out of a chance of winning a race it definitely adds a lot more to the facts. If we had a big enough lead and he could still go on to win the race or something then I think it needs to be taken into account in some ways but understanding how and how much and where that line is again a complicated and difficult thing. Something I'm sure we'll have to speak about with FIA and drivers but not an easy thing to have a rule for," Norris continued telling his opinion.

However, when the one-time Grand Prix winner was asked about whether his rival should have been penalised or not, he simply answered: "No comment."

What about Lap 63?

A lap before the pair crashed on Lap 64, also in Turn 3, Verstappen went wide. Norris believes should that move be penalised also needs to be clarified by the FIA. "I think Max could have made the corner, honestly. He didn't try, which is probably the main fact of it. But in this part of it, I didn't squeeze him. It wasn't like I was side by side and almost pushing him off, that kind of thing. He took a very easy route out of it," the Briton said

He continued: "It's not as simple as just saying this happened, that happened, and there should be a different outcome. But I'd say almost out of the whole thing, that was probably the little bit that I almost didn't understand the most. The gap he had out of the corner was bigger than what we had going in. So in the sense of him going off track and gaining advantage, he was actually the one that did it in that case. Especially with the fact that I didn't even push him off. There just needs to be some clarification on things."

On the other hand, Norris also believes there shouldn't be too many rules, because that would only complicate exciting racing between the drivers. "But every driver would do it. Max was doing it. I did it. I did come away from it just thinking it was good racing. We don't want to take away the fact of just racing and going wheel to wheel and have too many rules in this case. So I definitely think I probably overreacted in some way. So just clarity over certain things is what's needed. Apart from that, I'm happy to go out and race hard and do what we did last weekend," the McLaren driver concluded in Silverstone.

2024-07-04T13:31:13Z dg43tfdfdgfd