Verstappen laughs at attack on Norris: 'I had already planned that one'
Max Verstappen emerged victorious from the duel with Lando Norris at the United States Grand Prix. The Briton received a five-second penalty, and as a result, was dropped to fourth place. Verstappen cannot believe his luck and appeared to have planned the attack on Norris on the first lap in advance.
"Had to fight hard for it of course", Verstappen began opposite Viaplay about his achieved third place. "To be honest, I didn't expect to be able to keep Lando behind me either or have a chance to do anything. It didn't really go well in the race. I couldn't get the tyres under control. There was no balance, I couldn't brake, the car wasn't spinning."
The feeling in that respect was completely different from the rest of the weekend, with the RB20 once again struggling with its race pace: "Yes, we have to see where that went wrong today compared to the past two days. I can't put my finger on that right now."
Then, of course, it was inevitable to talk about the duel with Lando Norris. First of all, the duel in the first corner of the first lap: "Yes, I had already planned that one," Verstappen laughed about that attack.
Verstappen on the battle with Norris
"I'm obviously not going to make it easy for him towards the end of the season. The only problem for me was that I had no front end. Then it was very difficult to brake late because the car was not spinning. Then it's very easy to block. But in the end, it went pretty well."
"We managed to hold him up for a very long time and then he passed, but off the track. That gave him those five seconds, which obviously worked out well. We both went inside the track, but you can't overtake someone outside the track."
Verstappen's third place puts him further ahead of Norris, which Verstappen believes is the most important thing. "We obviously want to win this championship. At the moment, it was a more positive weekend, but in the race, we still came up short. So we still have some work to do."
This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy
In a word, greatest driver in 20-30 years on his way to winning his second championship when driving second, sometimes third best car. Legend in the make.
2023 was the one very obvious year that the RB was indeed the fastest in the field.... No doubt about it. However, in 2022, the Ferrari car was actually a match for the RB in terms of car performance, but the driver errors plus numerous team pit stop stratergy calls and mistakes made, made it look like the RB was actually far ahead in outright performance. Mercedes had the better car in 2021, especially in the second half of the season but Max made the difference to win the WDC that year. This year, McLaren definitely has the best car, but the gap in drivers performance is more than making up for the gap in the car performances.
Too many unnecessary mistakes from good guy Lando including the last lap on the sprint race where he made a mistake and allowed Sainz to overtake. Norris also got swamped on the start, losing 3 positions. These are not the moves of a champion. Max doing superb defense unlike anyone and even Martin Brundle telling young drivers to take notes on textbook driving during the encounter with Norris. Lando needs to make ground on Max, not lose points.
Lando makes to many mistake .lando had some chanses to make ground but he not look at points diffrent lando not made any ground when max was strugling in other races
They should just put inverted nails on track limits....if drivers got a puncture every time they went beyond it,they would learn how to take these corners. Hells,a 5 year old at go cart tracks knows how to do it,because you can't drive through a tire wall...
Thats why there isnt any problems with track limits at street circuits as a solid concrete wall is a very good deterrent for drivers wanting to run wide at a corner!
Simply lovely that max show why he wdc .lando not got that race mentality like max has
