Tag Archives: lando-norris

Max Verstappen has scored some spectacular Grand Prix wins over his stellar career, but his 64th success was something special.

At times over the Japanese GP weekend it looked like Red Bull had the fourth fastest car, and Verstappen was clearly not happy with it.

However, he worked away at improving it with his engineer, and when it mattered in Q3 he banged in a perfect lap to surprise even himself and his team to pip the McLarens to pole.

Not for the first time he had flattered his car and squeezed out a lap time that probably no one else could have found. And on this occasion pole proved to be even more valuable than thought at the time.

As of Saturday there was still a suggestion that rain could have an impact on the race, which could have added an element on uncertainty. In the end it fizzled out in the morning and the track was dry throughout the afternoon.

And in such conditions pole at Suzuka is almost as important as it is at Monaco – if Verstappen could stay in front on the first lap, there was a decent chance he could remain there for the duration. And that’s how it turned out.

“What a great race, an incredible race for Max,” said team boss Christian Horner after the flag. “I think the majority of the hard work was done yesterday. When you look at, I guess 90% of the cars finished in the order that they started in. But it was a flat out sprint race today. There was very low degradation.

“We know the McLarens are very, very fast, and it needed Max to be inch perfect with two very fast McLarens right behind him. And for 53 laps, he made not a single mistake, and had the pace to cover them, keep them out of his DRS.

“He was particularly strong in Turn 11 and the last corner to keep that vital second gap, and had enough to cover whatever they could throw at us today.”

That 0.012s advantage over Norris was invaluable.

“It was absolutely inch perfect,” said Horner. “If you look at the overlays between him and Lando, you can see that they’re absolutely neck and neck. There’s tiny bits in it. Lando was good in Turn 6. Max was very strong in Degner One, in Turn 11 [the hairpin] Max again was strong there. Lando, a little bit better in Spoon.

“But the differentiator at the end of it came down to the last chicane. And he absolutely nailed the last chicane. And that was just enough.

“But it was in a car that the theoreticals were behind McLaren’s fastest lap. Max extracted every ounce of performance. McLaren didn’t get that obviously, yesterday. So that was the difference.”

Strategy was the one card that the McLaren could play to get ahead. Piastri pitted first from third place, and then Norris followed Verstappen in on the same lap. Despite Lando’s best efforts at the pit exit, they left in the same order.

“It was clear that pit stops were approaching,” said Horner. “McLaren elected to pit Oscar first. But prior to that, they called a dummy with Lando. That really to us didn’t make any sense, because he would just come out in traffic.

“So we stuck to our guns. We didn’t react to the dummy. They then pitted Oscar, and it was clear that they were going to pit Lando the following lap. So it was then a matter of covering Lando.

“We didn’t have a totally clean pit stop. We’ve got a reserve crew with two members missing this weekend, and Lando got close-ish at the exit, but it never looked alongside or anything like that.

“And thereafter, on the hard tyre for 30-odd laps Max had the pace to cover whatever McLaren could throw at us, and at different times. One minute it was Lando, the next minute, Oscar looked very quick. But as you could see, overtaking throughout the field was almost negligible.”

Horner acknowledged that juggling the interests of both drivers is not easy for McLaren, and potentially helps RBR.

“I guess the problem they have is they have two drivers that are fighting for the drivers’ championship. And I guess the difficulty they have is that they’ve made a bed where they’re going to let them race. That’s the compromise that inevitably comes with that.”

When I asked if even among his many wins this was one of Verstappen’s best performances across qualifying and the race, Horner agreed that it was.

“I think that’s one of Max’s best weekends that he’s had. We literally turned the car upside down set-up wise, he’s worked very hard with the engineering team.

“Finally, we were able to give him a car that he could make use of in Q3 yesterday, with the most stunning lap, and then convert that today in a hard fought victory in a straight fight.

“It puts him one point behind in the in the drivers’ championship. So we leave Japan still with plenty of work to do, but huge motivation.”

Along with getting second driver Yuki Tsunoda fully up to speed the other challenge that Red Bull faces is trying to start the weekend with the RB21 in a good place for Verstappen, rather than spend three practice sessions largely on experimentation.

It does potentially plant doubts about the simulation tools that the team uses when deciding the initial set-up of the car on a Friday.

“Inevitably, those questions always get asked, and the biggest sensor that you have in the car is the driver,” said Horner. “And I think all credit to the team this weekend, at the beginning the weekend, we looked like we were out the window.

“We managed to get the car into a decent window. And Max Verstappen demonstrated why he’s got the number one on the car.

“Inevitably, you’re always learning. Ride heights, weight distributions, wing levels, roll bars, almost every adjustment on the car we’ve been through this weekend.

“And it just demonstrates if you keep working hard and you never give up, anything is possible. And Max has been stunning this weekend, and demonstrated once again why I think he’s the best driver on the grid.”

Lando Norris says he made up his mind in Brazil to pay back McLaren Formula 1 team mate Oscar Piastri for his help by handing him a sprint win should circumstances arise.

Race leader Norris moved over coming out of the final corner of Saturday’s sprint in Qatar and gave the win to the Australian, while successfully keeping George Russell in third.

Piastri had let Norris past at Interlagos when the latter was still in the hunt for the World Championship.

However with Max Verstappen confirmed as champion in Las Vegas Norris was able to sacrifice a victory and a point in Qatar without worrying too much.

“I made my mind up in Brazil when it happened,” he said. “So it’s a sprint, I only care so much more about the Grands Prix, as does everyone. After that happened in Brazil, I made my mind up that I needed to do something to give it back.”

Norris said that the wider McLaren team wasn’t aware of what he planned to do.

“No, it wasn’t something that was really discussed,” he said. “I didn’t have to do it, if I didn’t want to. I told my engineer that I would do it. So he was the main one that probably knew about it, and I told him before the race, if we have a bit of a gap and we’re first and second, then I would try and do it.

“So he knew, and he was telling me not to do it, because I think the gap was to George was probably a bit too fine for their liking. But Oscar did his part in trying to help me win and win, or help me get closer to Max in the championship, and give that opportunity a go.

“I deserve that right to have a chance, and that’s how we have to work as a team when one of us has that opportunity, and I returned the favour today.

“I don’t think any of us are proud of necessarily winning a sprint race, or we’re also not too unhappy on giving up a sprint race win, but we work together well as a team, and I think that’s probably one of our biggest strengths.

“So for everyone is how well we work together. I don’t think any other team would do such a thing and help each other as much as we’ve done this year for one another. And yeah, it’s our strength, and we’ll continue to do that.”

Norris tried to help Piastri pass Russell at the start of the race, and later he let Piastri have DRS in order to stay clear of the Mercedes driver.

“Having clean air is a beautiful thing,” he said. “So I could control things quite a lot, and I did as much as I could to help Oscar. I knew George was going to be quick this race. I tried, in Turn 1 already, to stay quite tight. I knew George was on the inside. So instead of running wide and giving Oscar the dirty air I tried to stay tight and give George the dirty air. So that seemed to work.

“And then we got a one-two from there, which was lovely. I think I could build a gap, probably not a big gap, but I could slowly make some progress. But George was still very fast in the middle part of the race and towards the end.

“So I backed off a few times to try and get Oscar the DRS again, because our target was to finish one-two today, and that’s exactly what we did.”

Lando Norris believes that his McLaren Formula 1 team will head into the 2025 season knowing that it can fight for the title “from round one”.

This year the Woking team began to gain momentum after introducing an upgrade package in Miami, where Norris scored his maiden win.

He subsequently became a title contender as he closed the gap to leader Max Verstappen.

Although he and team mate Oscar Piastri were competitive at most venues ultimately Norris was too far behind to take the title fight beyond last weekend’s Las Vegas GP.

However he believes that he can have a flying start in 2025.

“I’m very proud of the whole team for putting up the fight for so long, for starting to catch up, and then catching up as much as we did,” he said when I asked if he was proud of his achievements this year.

“We were the fourth best team at the beginning of the year. Red Bull have never been the fourth best team, or worst let’s say, ever. So we had just too big of a deficit to catch up from the beginning of the season, and we could not, because they’ve been too strong still.

“Next year we’ll go into the season with a car we think we can win a championship with from round one, and we’ve not been able to do that for the last six years. So I’m excited for that.

“But I’m proud of what we’ve achieved. My first win in F1, my first three. No one else is there fighting him. It’s been me and it’s been McLaren. So I’m proud of what we’ve achieved.

“Could we have done some things better? Absolutely. Do I think we could have won the championship even with a perfect season? I don’t. So I’m happy to finish second still.”

Norris believes that he has proved to himself that he is a title contender, while admitting that he still has to make improvements.

“I feel like I can fight for a championship, and I’m happy, and I can say that confidently, I have what it takes, and I know that deep down, that I have what it takes.

“I have some things to work on still, for sure, but I can fight against Max, and I’ll be happy to say that, because I think Max is the best driver in the world, and probably one of the best drivers that’s ever been in F1.

“Many people might disagree, but I’m quite confident when I say that, which is rare. So for me to put up a fight against him and to go wheel to wheel is something I love, I enjoy. I’ll probably look back on a lot in 20 years or 30 years that I fought such a driver.

“I’m happy for him. He deserves the championship, but hopefully I can upset him more next year.”

Norris conceded that McLaren’s disappointing performance in Las Vegas showed that the team has to work to do on next year’s MCL39.

“Clearly, we have a lot of work to do with our car. It’s too difficult to drive. It doesn’t work in these conditions. It doesn’t work in many other tracks where we’ve had similar conditions, but we’ve been able to get everything out of it.

“Sometimes even when people think we’ve had the best car, and we’ve absolutely not, we still won some of those races, and those were the great weekends.

“But this weekend, even if I feel like I drove pretty well, I couldn’t have got anything more out of it. And if I tried, I would, probably would have ended up in the wall somewhere.”

Norris adapted his driving to protect the tyres – and it paid off

McLaren boss Andrea Stella says that the team learned valuable lessons in Las Vegas after Lando Norris “tried something extreme” in the final stint.

The team had been struggling with front graining, but in the latter part of the race Norris found more performance after adapting his driving style in order to protect the tyres.

He started and finished sixth after what was the team’s most disappointing race for some time, although he also grabbed the fastest lap bonus after a late switch to softs.

“The review of Lando’s third stint will give us some important information as to what you need to achieve in tracks like this with our car in order to be competitive,” said Stella.

“Because the way we were using the car, driving the car, is definitely outside the way we normally would do. And that was more traditionally what we tried to do during the weekend.

“At the same time, you can do it to some extent, because at the end of the race, there was much more grip than at any other time during the weekend, because of all the cars running.

“And Lando didn’t have anybody ahead of him, so he got the clean air. So he had some conditions that helped. But definitely we tried to use the car in a significantly different way, and this seemed to make the lap times happier.

“So we are not happy from for the point of view of the result, but at least we got some important information to understand more about what you need to do in these kinds of conditions that you face here in Vegas, with a car that is designed in the way we design it, which is certainly not to operate in conditions like in Vegas.”

Stella praised Norris for being able to adapt mid-race: “We spent two stints just graining front tyres. And at the third stint, Lando tried something extreme, and it worked.

“You don’t do what Lando did in the final stint if you are not aware of what’s happening, and if you are not conscious that you have resources and tools in yourself or in the car, and then you are even in condition to deploy them and use them.

“So I think today gives us, even though the result to be honest, is a P6 but actually, in terms of how the competitive competitiveness evolved during the race, big credit to Lando for experimenting and finding some solutions.”

Norris said after the race that he’s had issues with the front of the car for up to six years, and Stella acknowledged that recent McLarens have a particular DNA.

“I think there’s some McLaren characteristics that we have improved over time,” said the Italian. “Definitely, we have been able to deliver a competitive car that can win races, but kind of can win races in a certain kind of circuit.

“And some of these inherent limitations, especially with the behaviour of the front end, still sometimes pop out when track layout or grip level or downforce level mean that you need to get a certain response from the front end.

“And at the moment, this response from the front end, we are not able to offer to our drivers.

“And this is also why I say that looking at the final stint in which the car came more alive, and the lap times were competitive, definitely we approached things in a slightly more aggressive way.

“We didn’t change the fundamental nature of the car, but we kind of really forced to remove the limitation at the front, and it seemed to make the lap times more competitive.”

Lando Norris says he has “less to lose” now that the gap to Formula 1 World Championship leader Max Verstappen has grown to 62 points.

At the last race in Brazil Verstappen won while Norris fell back to sixth place, having started from pole.

The McLaren driver says that with his chances of beating the Dutchman now mathematically much slimmer he can “enjoy a little bit more” the final races of the season.

“I kind of know the position I’m in now, and probably I have less to lose now,” he said when asked about his mindset ahead of the Las Vegas GP.

“For the first time, probably when I’ve looked at the gap myself, and had the realisation of where things stand, and I think post-Brazil was a tough one for me because it was the first moment realistically when I’m like it’s tough to achieve first position now.

“We were on such a good run of form, little by little, you know, it’s hard to get any big points on Max, because he didn’t have any bad races, but I had a tough week, because things just didn’t go our way, and my kind of real fight for the championship was slimmed by the biggest margin of almost of the whole year, so a tricky one.

“But it doesn’t change my approach. My approach has been correct. My approach has been the right approach for the last few weekends. I’ve been performing well. I’ve been doing a good job.

“So from my side, I need to not change anything, but I think I can probably just go out and enjoy a little bit more.”

Norris insisted that whatever happens in this year’s championship he’s proved to himself that he’s capable of fighting for the title in the future.

“I think it’s the first time in the last six years of F1 when we’ve had a chance to fight at the front,” he said. “We’ve not been able to do that for the last six years.

“So this is our and my first opportunity to do so, and my first opportunity to see where I stand. And I definitely was not at the level I needed to be at the beginning of the year, and even the Miami point of the season.

“Since the summer break, I feel like I’ve done a very good job and performed very, very well, by far some of my best performances that I’ve done. So I’ve been very happy, actually, with how the last few months have gone, honestly. I wouldn’t change many things that have happened.

“But I still need to make tweaks. I still need to improve on things. That’s clear. I’m not completely satisfied with how I’ve done. I definitely know I need to make improvements.

“But for the first time, I’m confident to say that I have what I think I need to fight for a championship.

“Doesn’t mean I’m complete, doesn’t mean I’m perfect, that’s for sure. And when you’re competing against drivers who are close to that, like Max, you have to be close to perfect if you want to challenge him, you know, and challenge the teams we’re around.

“So I’m confident and I think the main thing I can take away is I have faith that I have got what it takes to fight for a championship.”

Norris admitted that while McLaren has a 36-point advantage in the constructors’ championship, it is still wide open.

“It’s close,” he said. “I mean, Ferrari have been strong for a long time. They have two very good drivers. They’re a very good team. They’ve clearly improved their car a good amount and found a better direction to head down.

“And they’ve become, probably with us, and some races a bit better, some races a little bit behind, some races the same, as a competitor.

“Red Bull are close at the same time. So it’s more who can just do a better performance on the weekend. But we do know that Vegas is probably a track that will suit the Ferraris a bit more. It suited them well last year. But Qatar we know maybe will be more favourable to us again.”

Norris hasn’t spoken to Verstappen since the last race

Lando Norris says that he hasn’t spoken to Max Verstappen since their most recent on-track clash in the Mexico City GP – and he insists that the Dutchman “knows what he did wrong.”

Verstappen received two 10-second penalties for his moves on Norris when the McLaren driver tried to find a way past early in the race.

After taking the hit at his pit stop Verstappen finished sixth, while Norris earned second place and improved his position in the World Championship.

The pair frequently travel to races together, and talked after their collision in Austria earlier in the season. However Norris made it clear that this time, they have had no contact.

“No, we’ve not spoken,” he said. “I don’t think we need to. I’ve got nothing to say. I still have a lot of respect for Max and everything he does.

“Not respect for what he did last weekend, but respect for him as a person, and also what he’s achieved.

“But it’s not for me to speak to him. I’m not his teacher, I’m not his mentor or anything like that. Max knows what he has to do. He knows that he did wrong. Deep down he does, and it’s for him to change, not for me.”

Asked if their relationship had changed recently he said: “Not that I know of. I’ve not spoken to Max. It’s not something I need to speak to Max about.

“Max is probably one of the most capable drivers on the grid, if not the most, and he knows what he can and can’t do, and where the limits. He knows the changes he has to make.”

Meanwhile having had four days to process the events of Mexico Norris said he was happy with the way the FIA stewards dealt with the Verstappen incidents, which came after a weekend when driving guidelines were the main topic of conversation.

“I think the stewards did a good job,” he said when asked by this writer for his thoughts heading into the Interlagos weekend.

“I think they have a very difficult job, but they’ve done a good job. I think 99% of people who watch F1 and know F1 agree with that. So I think we’re happy from our side. I stayed out of trouble and did my job also, which is that.

“But every weekend is a new weekend, right? So I don’t know what to expect this weekend, obviously I hope for, or I expect, a cleaner battle than what we had.

“But it’s not up to me. I don’t make the rules. I don’t decide the penalties, I just drive. And the stewards did the race, and they did a good job.”

Norris says he won’t be changing his own approach to racing Verstappen.

“I think something I’ve done well my whole career is always normally stay out of trouble and keep the car in one piece,” he said. “All those little things add up over a championship, and over a season, especially in a cost cap season as well.

“But I think I’ve always had the mentality to want to race fair and clean, and sometimes I’ve been, I think I probably said it last weekend on the too-kind side, whether I was attacking or defending and things like that.

“I think I’ve always made good decisions from that side, and sometimes I’ve paid the price for not being aggressive enough. But the rest of it is not up to me, but I know how to keep the car in one piece.

“That’s something I’ve done for a while. Even when you don’t realise it, there are times when I had to avoid a potential crash, and maybe you don’t see it behind the TV and things like that. But inside the car, it’s ‘I’m only here because I avoided this,’ or avoided this person or that person.

“So there are more times than people realise that you go through those certain scenarios, and I think those are some of the challenges we have every now and then.

“But I’ll come into this weekend with a new expectation of hopefully we have clean, fair racing, and I think that’s what we should expect.”

McLaren boss Andrea Stella noted in Mexico that Norris had been told not to take justice into his hands on track, and leave it instead to the stewards.

However he downplayed the suggestion that he thinks about such things when driving.

“I’m very chilled, I’m very relaxed when I’m on track,” he said. “For me, that’s how I need to perform, is by being relaxed and not thinking about these things.

“Yeah, there’s two different sides, when you’re just driving, and driving quickly is one job, but staying out of trouble, not making contact, all of those things, is another task on top of it, I guess.

“I think I’ve always done a good job of staying out of trouble, whether it’s lap ones, turn, ones, any of these things, but also racing against your main competitors and rivals, it’s a big challenge, and I always expect it to be tough.

“I don’t want it to be easy. I never expect it to be easy. But my job is to make sure I see the finish line every time, and that’s what I got to do.”

Norris was told to leave justice to the FIA stewards…

McLaren Formula 1 boss Andrea Stella says that Lando Norris has been told to not “find justice yourself” in his fights with Max Verstappen, and instead rely on FIA stewarding decisions.

In effect that message meant not to retaliate on-track should the Red Bull driver do something that Norris felt was unfair.

Verstappen received two 10-second penalties for his moves on Norris in the Mexico City GP, and Stella praised the stewards, suggesting that they “took feedback on board” after the recent Austin controversy.

“I think Lando can look at his own racing, often looking at the half empty glass in relation to what he could do,” he said. “But our conversation and our internal reviews have always been very clear.

“Lando, we like, we approve, we confirm the way you go racing. It’s not for you to go there and trying to find justice yourself.

“You go racing in a fair, sportive way like you do, and then there needs to be a third party that is the stewarding, that will say whether some manoeuvres are correct or not.

“Don’t be desperate. Don’t have to prove anything. You go racing fair and square. This is what we want from Lando. This is what Lando wants from himself.

“And I think it was important, though, that the team kind of confirms that’s what we want from you Lando. That’s what we want to go, racing at McLaren and for a driver driving a McLaren car.

“So in this sense, I think this is a positive day, because it has proven that I think it’s good to race hard, but it can’t be resolved on track by the two drivers. It needs a third party. It needs the authority.

“So we are completely happy with the way Lando has been gone racing before, and anytime I read this kind of headlines, I always needed to have a conversation with Lando reassure him. Don’t worry, he will be all right. Time is a gentleman.”

Regarding the second incident in Mexico Stella said: “I think Lando was going through his normal line, because he would have never expected Max to go for the inside.

“But effectively, I think the development of the incident proved that there was no way to keep the car on track for Max.

“So I think Lando was caught a little bit by surprise, but the evidence is, is that it’s quite fair that he was surprised, because actually, you cannot keep a car on track if you enter the corner on the inside at that speed.”

Stella says Norris knew not to take any risks in the remainder of the Mexican race after getting stuck behind Verstappen following their initial tussle.

“The message we gave to Lando was we have pace, if we can pass him, let’s do it,” he said. “Because we understood at some stage that we could compete with Ferrari, and we were losing time behind Max.

“But obviously we didn’t need to say – Lando knows very well that this kind of overtaking needs to happen in a safe way, because for us, we are competing on both fronts, the drivers’ championship and the constructors’ championship, and even when you engage these kind of battles, you need to think both things, like we need to finish races.

“But this was clear. We have talked extensively about this before the race in our objectives with the drivers, so we didn’t need to repeat to Lando.”

Stella, who made his point by initiating an unsuccessful right of review request after Norris was penalised in Austin, said the stewards had got it right this time.

“In my view, the penalties seem to be consistent with the application of the guidelines in relation to those kinds of incidents,” he noted. “So I think from this point of view, this has been a positive day, because it shows that authority exists.

“It shows that the stewards have done a good job, a good job that surely becomes because of constant review, like we do in F1 in any kind of thing you do, you then review, and you try to improve. And certainly we as a team, there’s many things that we know we can review and improve.

“And to me, it looks like this process has happened also in terms of stewarding, in terms of the FIA having taken some feedback constructively on board. And we appreciate this, and we not as a team, but as a part of the F1 community, I feel like I have to thank the FIA and the stewards.”

He added: “I do trust the work of the stewards. In my view, today, they interpreted the racing scenarios accurately. They applied the guidelines consistently. And like I said, this for me, this is a positive news for everyone.”

Lando Norris says his battle with Max Verstappen in Mexico City was “not fair, clean racing”, adding that the Dutchman “got what he had coming to him” when he was penalised by the FIA stewards.

Just seven days after their controversial incident in Austin triggered a debate about driving guidelines Verstappen and Norris were again involved in a fight as the McLaren driver unsuccessfully tried to find a way past.

Verstappen was first docked 10 seconds for forcing another driver off the track, and then a further 10 seconds for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.

Norris eventually finished second behind winner Carlos Sainz, while Verstappen had to settle for sixth.

“I think it’s pretty self-explanatory on what happened,” said Norris when asked about the incidents.

“I did everything I’ve been told in terms of what the rules are and the guidelines and all of this stuff, yet it just wasn’t to be. And, of course, he got some penalties for that.

“I go into every race expecting a tough battle with Max. It’s clear that it doesn’t matter if he wins or is second, his only job is to beat me in the race. And he’ll sacrifice himself to do that, like he did today.

“I want to have good battles with him. I want to have those tough battles, like I’ve seen him have plenty of times. But fair ones. It’s always going to be on the line. It’s always going to be tough with Max. He’s never going to make anyone’s life easy, especially mine at this point of the year.

“I think today it was not fair, clean racing. And therefore, I think he got what he had coming to him.”

Norris rejected the suggestion that he should talk to Verstappen.

“It’s not my job,” he said. “It’s got nothing to do with me in a way. Today I felt like I just had to avoid collisions, and that’s not what you feel like you want to do in a race.

“He’s in a very powerful position in the championship. He’s a long way ahead. He has nothing to lose. People can say it’s the other way around, like he’s got everything to lose and it’s all for me.

“But it’s not the case. So it’s not for me. I’m focused on myself. I’m doing my own job, which was a good job today.

“And I’m happy with all of this, and I’m happy with my whole weekend. But it’s not my job to control him. He knows how to drive. And I’m sure he knows that today was probably a bit over the limit.”

Asked to compare the Mexican battle with previous incidents with Verstappen in the Austrian and US GPs Norris made it clear that he viewed Sunday’s action at a more serious level.

“Austria, I don’t think anyone should have got a penalty,” he said. “Austin, I don’t think anyone should have got a penalty. Yeah, let’s say we both kind of did things wrong. The majority of people, the majority of drivers, feel like that was the same thing.

“That’s why you’ve heard of some of the rule changes that might be coming, and those types of things. It’s because there’s a common consensus that it wasn’t correct, what happened in the result that I had last weekend.

“Today, I think, was another level on both of those cases. t was another level on both. I was ahead of Max in the braking zone, past the apex. I am avoiding crashing today. This is the difference.

“I can’t speak for him, and maybe he’ll say something different. But I think today was a step too far from both of those, and it was clear that the stewards agreed with that. So I don’t see it as a win or anything like this, but it’s more that I hope Max acknowledges that he took it a step too far.”

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner says that the decision to hand a penalty to Lando Norris in Austin was “a slum dunk” and “black and white.”

The McLaren driver was docked five seconds for passing Max Verstappen off-track when they were fighting for third place in the closing laps of the race.

The penalty ensured that the positions were reversed after the chequered flag, with Norris falling back to fourth.

McLaren boss Andrea Stella admitted that his team thought Verstappen would be penalised for forcing Norris wide, but Horner is adamant that the FIA view was the correct one.

“First of all, the racing between the two of them was competitive and great to watch,” he said. “Obviously all the drivers know acutely what the rules are. They discuss these issues and particular corners in the briefings, with the various stewards and driver stewards and race director.

“The pass was made off track. We’ve been on the receiving end of that, in fact here I think, against Kimi [Raikkonen] in 2018. So for us, it was crystal clear that the pass had been made off the track.

“So he should have given the place back. He chose not to. So therefore there was a penalty. So for us, it was a very much a black and white scenario.”

Horner countered the suggestion that the decision should have been made after the race: “I think it was a slam dunk. And the problem is, again, we then have the arguments of you want the right people on the podium. It’s happened so many times that I actually think the stewards dealt with it pretty rapidly and decently today.”

Horner made it clear that he was surprised that Norris didn’t give the place back given that he had the potential to re-pass Verstappen.

“I think it’s very difficult for the stewards, and every incident is different,” he said. “So you have to look at every incident individually. When you’re on the receiving end of it, it’s not nice.

“As I say, we’ve been on the receiving end of it numerous times, not just at this track, but at other tracks. They all know what’s at stake.

“What I perhaps didn’t understand was it was clear there was going to be a penalty, or it looked pretty clear there was going to be a penalty with the car advantage and tyre advantage that McLaren had at that point of the race.

“It looked like he went to give the place back up at Turn 1, but there was some confusion there.

“If he’d have given the place back immediately, he would have probably, he probably would have had enough pace to make the pass.”

Regarding the lack of a penalty for Verstappen forcing Norris wide at the first corner he said: “Again, we discussed these many, many times. It goes back to Niki Lauda making an impassioned plea to Charlie Whiting of ‘just let them race.’

“And it was agreed then, for the first lap it used to be, now it’s very much the first corner, let them race. And that was a classic case of that. And they all know that.”