Norris and Verstappen have spoken: 'Is between him and me'

F1 News

Norris says he spoke to Verstappen about crash in Austria
4 July at 08:00
  • Cas van de Kleut

Things got pretty heated between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. The two friends crashed into each other during the Austrian Grand Prix. After the incident, Norris, in particular, was very angry with the world championship leader. Now that the incident is half a week ago, the Briton tells the BBC how things are going between him and Verstappen now.

After the incident, Norris seemed furious about Verstappen's actions. He argued that the Dutchman was at fault for allegedly going off his line while braking. The McLaren driver also said he would lose a lot of respect for his friend the moment he [Verstappen] did not admit his mistakes.

Norris spoke to Verstappen about the crash

The two have since sent each other messages about the incident. Norris says: "We’re going to have a chat, of course, because I think it’s the correct thing to do. But apart from that, what we talk about and how things go is between us."

Norris also states that it is absolutely not the plan to have another incident like the one in Austria: "We want to race hard and we both know that, but we definitely don’t want things ending like they did. We want to make sure we avoid that in the future."

Norris regrets his statements

When Norris was then asked if he thinks things will be all right between him and Verstappen, he replied, "I think so. Like we’ve said many times, because of the respect we still have. I’m not going to let something like that suddenly blow up everything.  Definitely my adrenaline side probably got a little the better of me in a few of the comments. I don’t think everything I said was probably as correct as what it should be."

Norris continued: "But I was fighting for one of my first wins; it was my second win on the cards. For Max, it’s his 60th. So what it means to me is very different to what it means to him. So of course I am going to be upset and maybe say some things that are not correct or as I would like them to come out, but we will be fine."