Mexican Grand Prix spectators made their feelings about Max Verstappen known on Sunday.
Lando Norris claims he wasn’t surprised by the ‘not very clean’ racing on show from Max Verstappen at the Mexican Grand Prix.
Norris and his Red Bull title rival clashed during the early laps of Sunday’s race. Verstappen forced the McLaren star off the track at Turn 4, and then again at Turn 8 while going off track himself to reclaim second place.
Stewards hit Verstappen with a pair of 10-second time penalties for the incidents, which happened in quick succession on lap 11. Serving that punishment saw reigning three-time world champion Verstappen tumble down the standings, and he finished the race in sixth.
Norris went on to seal a second-place finish, and he smirked and chuckled as boos rang around Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez when Verstappen’s name was mentioned by the post-race interviewer.
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“It was a very tough race,” said Norris. “You know, the first few laps, a lot of it was trying to stay in the race and avoid any crashes. I mean, I knew what to expect [from Verstappen].
“I didn’t want to expect such a thing because I respect Max a lot as a driver, but I was ready to expect something like this, and this is not very clean driving in my opinion, but I avoided it and had a good race.”
Norris moved up one position from his third-place grid slot to close the gap on Verstappen in the race for the Drivers’ Championship. But the 24-year-old, who is good friends with Verstappen off the track, has a daunting 47 points to make up over the final four Grands Prix of the season.
“I will just keep my head down,” Norris added. “I’m doing my best. We’re doing a very good job as a team. I think today we were probably the quickest in the end. But we will keep our heads down. That’s all we can do right now – focus on ourselves. We’ll keep pushing.”
