Tempers boiled over in Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix between the top two drivers.
Polesitter Max Verstappen and Lando Norris duked it out for the victory around the Red Bull Ring in what looked to be a clean fight — until it wasn’t.
On lap 64, the two racers collided, which punctured both drivers’ tires and sent them to the pits. Mercedes’ George Russell scored the victory.
Verstappen and his Oracle Red Bull Racing team were able to continue to a fifth-place finish despite a 10-second penalty for the incident.
However, Norris suffered the most from the clash as he was unable to continue. He placed last in 20th, handing McLaren zero points from the event.
Following the race, Norris was frustrated with the damage of his race car, knowing he had a chance at a second career victory.
“(I) just feel let down,” Norris began. “A lot of damage on the car, the car’s completely destroyed now. Yeah, a shame, I don’t know. You wanna keep driving. If I got back to the pits in a better way, I could’ve gone out and got some points, but the car was too badly broken.”
Norris was firm in his vantage point of the crash, pinning the blame on the reigning F-1 champion.
“I did all I could, I gave a fair, respectful, on-the-edge battle, but that’s not what I got in return,” Norris said.
While the two are friends off the track, Norris believes Verstappen should be the one to confront Norris about their clash.
“It’s not for me to say, it’s for him to say something,” Norris said. “I did nothing wrong. He was the one in the wrong, so, he’s the one that should say something, not me.”
On the other side of the coin, Verstappen took a defensive approach, citing Norris’ move for the lead was “weird.”
“From my side it seemed like a weird move but we obviously need to review this and of course we will talk about it,” Verstappen said. “The shape of the corner also provides these kinds of issues sometimes and it is never nice to come together.
“This, however, isn’t currently my main focus as we need to take a look at the overall performance today and the difficulties we had with the car.”