Looking back, just before the second pit stop, the common thought was that Max Verstappen was on his way to another win this weekend and this season, despite losing a few seconds in traffic with the backmarkers.
However, that second stop totally changed the cards on the table. A slow pit stop of 6 and a half seconds due to a problem with the right rear allowed Norris to make a significant comeback, once again becoming a real threat for victory.
As the Briton returned to DRS, Verstappen found it difficult to break away from his rival, who then began a no-holds-barred battle. On several occasions, Norris tried to dive down the inside of the corner, but was never able to complete the overtaking move that would have put him in the lead. In addition, in the meantime, he had also crossed the white line that delimits the track more than allowed, earning a five-second penalty that would later be applied to his total race time.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Before the penalty arrived, however, the two were the protagonists of a tough duel, in which several times over the radio they did not fail to accuse each other for maneuvers that were either not very sensible or for the aggressiveness used between them. A theme that Norris himself underlined both during the race and in the interviews at the end of the race, considering that Verstappen was also awarded ten seconds for the contact which, in fact, put the Briton out of the game and which caused him to finish the three-time world champion himself was off the podium.
But going in order, the Dutchman wanted to first respond to Norris’ accusations that he had moved while braking, underlining that this was not the case: “No, I mean, of course, from the outside it’s difficult to see when I brake, I know that in the past there has always been some controversy, but now I always move before braking. And then obviously you brake with a straight line or something. So it’s always easy to say from the outside that I moved while braking, but I think that whoever is in the car knows very well what they are doing”, commented the Red Bull driver.
“For me it wasn’t a braking movement. Because every time I moved, I wasn’t braking. Obviously from the outside it always looks like that, but I think I know pretty well what to do in these types of scenarios.”
Verstappen also wanted to bring attention to another issue, the fact that the Englishman’s attempts under braking were very late, triggering potentially dangerous situations. A discussion also linked to the shape of the curve: “Furthermore, some of these attempts were real dive bombs, very late attempts, you throw it to the inside hoping that the person in front will move. It’s not always like this that you race, but I think that the curve here also lends itself to this. I’ve been in the other position and it happens that I try, it also depends on how the curve is made”.
![Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38](https://cdn.motorsport.com/images/mgl/6n9xdXlY/s1000/max-verstappen-red-bull-racing.jpg)
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Speaking about the incident that finally put him out of contention for the win, Verstappen explained that he hadn’t expected that kind of move on the outside: “I think the contact that led to us touching was something I didn’t expect. I saw it coming, obviously, so I defended the inside a bit. Then, under braking, we touched each other with the rear tyres and we both got punctures, which obviously shouldn’t happen,” said Max, who then moved to the outside again in an attempt to close the door on Lando.
Asked again about the ten-second penalty he was given by the stewards, being held entirely responsible for the contact, Verstappen again highlighted the moves his rival used to attack him: “That’s what I meant when I said dive bombs. It’s just a late attack, hoping the other guy will move away and you can make the corner, which didn’t happen in this case.”
“Of course, you can say that I moved when braking, but it wasn’t like that because I didn’t brake when I moved. But it’s also a bit like braking from a long distance, which is obviously nice. I like it too, but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. And I think today it didn’t work. But yes, then obviously, the contact was an unfortunate episode.”
![Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38](https://cdn.motorsport.com/images/mgl/YEQxmoqY/s1000/max-verstappen-red-bull-racing.jpg)
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Beyond the episode, Verstappen also wanted to underline another theme, namely that it was not a simple day for Red Bull in terms of on-track operations. If in Spain this element had made the difference, in this case, according to the Dutchman, the team made some errors both on a strategic level and in the pit stops. A bad race happens to everyone but, according to Max, today more mistakes were made all at once.
“The first stint was quite good. Then, of course, at the end of the first stint I found quite a bit of traffic, in my opinion I should have come in, because I lost a lot of time. Basically, today we made a lot of mistakes. For me personally it all started with the strategy, then the pit stops were a disaster. The first one was already terrible, the second one was even more disastrous.”
“That’s seconds you give away, six seconds in those two pit stops. And then, of course, the race opened up again. And that’s why I think we put ourselves in a difficult position, obviously, and to have an incident between us, which you never want to happen. But yeah, we did everything we could do wrong today.”
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