“No real danger” allowing contact in slow corners

Max Verstappen should not have been penalised for his collision with Lando Norris, said Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko, who claimed there was “no real danger” when the two made contact.

The pair collided on the 64th lap of the race at turn three. The stewards ruled Verstappen was “predominantly” to blame for the collision and said his penalty was in line with past precedents.

However Marko called the decision “incomprehensible” and claimed Norris was more to blame than Verstappen.

“Max and Lando were at, and sometimes over, the limit,” Marko told SpeedWeek. “But we must not forget: they were braking down to low speed there, no opponent was nearby, the run-off area is large, and there was no real danger. So why not let the two of them fight it out?

“The 10-second penalty for Max was incomprehensible to me because, in my opinion, Lando was more at fault. He wasn’t beyond the white line twice by accident.”

However Marko admitted the team should have warned Verstappen he did not need to fight hard against Norris once it became likely the McLaren driver would receive a time penalty for repeatedly exceeding the track limits.

Five laps before the pair collided, Norris exceeded the track limits at turn three. He has already been shown the black-and-white flag for committing three track limits violations and a fourth meant an automatic five-place grid penalty. Although Red Bull had told Verstappen about Norris’ warning, and the driver was aware the McLaren had gone off the track again, they did not explicitly state he was at risk of a penalty.

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“We could have told Max that an investigation was underway against Lando and that Norris would most likely receive a penalty, so Max should let his opponent go,” said Marko. “But something like that doesn’t fit with Max Verstappen’s DNA.”

Race control noted Norris’ fourth track limits infringement one minute after it occured. A minute later they announced he was under investigation for committing multiple track limits infringements. His penalty was confirmed three minutes after that, while he and Verstappen were driving their damaged cars back to the pits.

Marko said race control should have decided Norris’ penalty more quickly. “I would have liked the track boundary penalty for Norris to have been imposed more quickly, then it would not have escalated,” he said. “The decision should have been made more quickly using all the means available to the race management.”

He doubts Norris would have beaten Verstappen even if the McLaren driver had successfully passed him. “We will never know whether Norris would have tried to get to the front and then pull away by five seconds to make up for a penalty. In my opinion, he would not have succeeded against Verstappen. But that also contributed to this escalation.”

He added he was unimpressed with Norris “complaining too whiningly on the radio” about Verstappen’s defensive moves, and said the McLaren driver went unpunished for a similar move at the previous grand prix. “I remember the start in Spain, where he pushed Max into the grass. There was no outcry or sanctions at the time.”

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Verstappen’s radio chatter after Norris’ fourth track limits strike

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