Yeaaaaaaaa…Duhduhduhduhduh…Duhduh. Boulevard. Red Bull suspects intent by Norris. Norris still has to see whether his friendship with Verstappen survives.
You could wait for it of course. For the third time in two weeks, Lando Norris and Max Verstappen stood next to each other on the front row of an F1 grid this afternoon. This year marks the first time that a battle will take place between the two young dogs, who both have a great future ahead of them in the sport. Verstappen has of course already fulfilled the promise. Lando has yet to do that. He has been regarded as a great talent since his youth and, together with Leclerc and Russell, he will have to give our hero a side when HAM and ALO will soon retire for good.
Recently, Lando (finally) won his first race in F1, after already scoring several podiums. And the bear is finally free, it seems. Norris now has the car to attack Verstappen and today we saw that play out in extremis on the circuit. Until it all ended in tears (of happiness for Russell).
It is the first real time that friends Norris and Verstappen, often seen together in the better dance halls of Monaco or in the SIM, caused damage on the circuit with a victory at stake. Many had already speculated that something like this could happen. But yes, that’s how it is now. Luckily they stay cool under there, right? What happens on the track stays on the track? Meh…
Red Bull team boss Horner
Christian Horner was probably happy that controversy is finally not about him again. In doing so, he adds fuel to the fire. Horner claims that Norris caused the incident on purpose. The Brit would have done that because he knew he had a five-second penalty. And so ‘never’ could normally win, even if he were to overtake Max. This could be done by ‘forcing something’. Okay…
McLaren team honcho Stella
Andrea Stella sees it a little differently. And claims that the rest of the world does too. ‘Everyone can see who is wrong. Only a small group of people can’t’. With that last part, Stella is of course referring to Red Bull. However, the devil is in the detail. ‘You see that if you don’t tackle these kinds of things, it doesn’t change. In the past, there have also been incidents with Hamilton’. Ouch. Max did receive a 10-second penalty for the incident. Although that didn’t result in him losing any more positions.
Lando Norris
Norris is also angry. Real real real friends would probably turn a blind eye to something like that. But F1 drivers can be a bit prickly, especially right after a race. When Sky Italia asks how their friendship is now, NOR says ‘I don’t know. If he says he did something stupid, I understand. If he doesn’t take responsibility, then it’s over as far as I’m concerned’.
Max Verstappen
Finally, the man himself. At first it didn’t seem like he was going to take that responsibility. In the car he was still cynical about the punishment and accused Norris of divebombing. Out of the car he has already calmed down a bit, although it is not yet possible to really take the blame.
Max says ‘I had the feeling that Lando had braked from very far away a few times, that it was difficult for him to stop. That if I didn’t steer outside or to the right, we would collide. I’ll look at it again, but from my side: I of course defend the inside a bit, but I don’t go very far inside. He goes all the way around the outside, and then I think we drove with the rear wheels touching each other? It was a very strange moment, not expected at all.’
Our expectation
They’re men, so they’ll probably have a beer together tonight or at most tomorrow night. If not, we are…um…not men.
