Notable moment spotted between Norris and Verstappen in driving style change theory

Lando Norris says his overtake on Max Verstappen was ‘not a surprise’

Having already recorded one costly crash, Jan Lammers reckons Max Verstappen and Lando Norris’ brief tussle at Monza shows they’re “really trying” to avoid a repeat.

Norris and Verstappen crashed at the Austrian Grand Prix when the Briton challenged his title rival for the lead of the race.

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Going wheel-to-wheel, the title rivals raced one another hard which led to contact as Norris tried to go around the outside of Turn 3 only for Verstappen to shut the door.

Both cars suffered damage with Norris retiring his McLaren, while Verstappen pitted for fresh rubber and crossed the line in fifth place.

That incident ignited their on-track rivalry, especially as they have often found themselves in close proximity near the front of the grid.

In the last two races alone, Zandvoort and Monza, there has been wheel-to-wheel action with Norris taking the lead off Verstappen at the Dutch Grand Prix and passing him for position in Italy.

Speaking about that overtake, arguably one of the easiest Norris will ever make on the reigning World Champion, the McLaren driver put that down to Red Bull’s lack of pace at Monza.

“I mean, they didn’t have any pace,” he told the media including PlanetF1.com. “So therefore, it was not a surprise. I was on much fresher tyres, like 10, 15 laps or something. It was expected.”

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However, Dutch pundit Jan Lammers has hinted there could be more to it than just pace with neither Norris nor Verstappen wanting to risk a crash.

“Those guys will always make sure that there is no contact, because you don’t know whether the other or you are out,” Lammers said on Ziggo Sport’s Race Cafe.

“They really try to avoid contact.

“You saw in the second chicane that Max’s rear tyre was almost touched. That could have been a flat tyre.”

That’s a sentiment echoed by his fellow pundit Jack Plooij, who noted: “Just look at Norris’s move. He really moves to the side.”

Trailing Verstappen by 62 points, any collision involving the two protagonists would hurt Norris more than Verstappen. But Plooij says “Max can’t afford a crash either”.

Speaking to the media including PlanetF1.com about their Austrian Grand Prix incident, Verstappen revealed he made it clear to his good friend that he is not there to take him out.

“Naturally, I always said to Lando, when you go for moves up the inside, outside, you can trust me that I’m not there to try and crash you out of the way, same the other way around, because we spoke about that as well,” he said.

“There’s always a human reaction when someone dives up the inside or outside that you have a bit of a reaction to it, but I felt everything that I did was nothing massively over the top.

“Like how you design a car, you try to go to the edge of the rules, maybe you find some grey areas here and there as a car, and that’s the same how you race, otherwise you will never be a top driver and you will never succeed in life anyway.”

For his part, Norris said he “learned many things. I think a lot of stuff I was anticipating and knew about but it’s still different… You’re fighting against different people, you’re fighting in different ways at the top compared to when you’re a bit further back like we have done the last kind of year or so.

“But at the same time, Max has a very different way of racing compared to a lot of others and that’s some of the reasons why he’s a champion.”

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