Windsor disagrees with 'strange' Verstappen penalty: 'Punishment Norris should have come earlier'

According to Windsor, it was clear that if Norris wanted to overtake, he should do so on the outside. So the McLaren driver did, but then things went wrong: Verstappen and Norris hit each other. It is commonly claimed that Verstappen deliberately steered to the left, but the F1 analyst and former Williams team manager wants to know nothing of that.

Windsor defends Verstappen: 'He's not steering to the left'

"If you closely study Max's onboard he doesn't actually move to the left at all. What is actually happening is that the track is angled slightly to the left there he keeps absolutely straight on the steering, it looks as if he's moving to the left which is possibly what the stewards are looking at but if you look at his steering angle he doesn't change anything," Windsor states in his analysis on YouTube.

"He keeps in a straight line. I think the real problem is that Lando's carrying the big speed differential because of DRS. All of a sudden he got the speed differential and the track's going slightly to the left," he continued. "Then Max got the penalty for moving the steering to the left, which was all a bit odd."

Windsor calls decision on Verstappen and Norris 'strange'

What Windsor finds strangest of all is that it was only after Verstappen's penalty that it was decided to give Norris five seconds for exceeding track limits, an offence the McLaren driver had committed at an earlier stage.

"If that decision had been published obviously or given out during the course of the race, Max Verstappen would have won the Austrian Grand Prix because he would have just let Lando pass with his five-second penalty and followed in the DRS and finish a few seconds behind him and won the race," Windsor concluded.

This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy