Lando Norris fires Max Verstappen accusation and expects FIA penalty

Lando Norris accused Max Verstappen of deliberately trying to defend his position on track when the Dutchman swerved into his path towards the end of qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix on Saturday. Verstappen conducted a burnout to warm up his rear tyres just after the high-speed 130-R corner, which forced Norris to take evasive action onto the grass in order to avoid a heavy collision at the last moment.

The Red Bull driver was placed under investigation by the race stewards following the end of the session and faces losing pole position for Sunday’s race if he is penalised as a result of his role in the incident. Norris explained after qualifying that he would expect a penalty to be given if he had done the same thing as Verstappen, with the two drivers coming extremely close to a huge collision at near-top speed.

“I mean, it was quite clear he tried to do that [defend his position],” Norris told Sky Sports F1. “There’s no rule on what you can do, but doing what he did is something that you cannot do.

“People always overtake before the last corner, as much as everyone agrees to it, everyone always does it, so it doesn’t matter, he probably would have done the same if he was in my situation, but I wouldn’t have swerved at him if I was in his situation.”

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When quizzed on whether he would expect to receive a penalty if he had done what Verstappen did, Norris replied: “Oh yeah, for sure.”

It seemed as though Verstappen either simply did not see Norris coming behind him in his mirrors or was not told by his race engineer that the young Brit was approaching him at high speed. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner appeared to blame Norris for the incident, though, by suggesting that he should not have tried to overtake Verstappen before the final chicane.

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“They’re both on out laps and there’s a gentleman’s agreement between the drivers that when you get to that part of the circuit you hold position and they file through the last chicane one-by-one,” said Horner.

“So, Lando has decided that he wants to jump the queue as they head up to that final chicane. They’ve been following each other all the way around the circuit until that point.

“I don’t think he [Verstappen] was trying to block. I just don’t think he was expecting, on an out lap, somebody at that point near the chicane to be coming.”

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