Two races and two flashpoints, the world championship battle between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris is in full flow. With the demonstrable full commitment of both protagonists, neither is leaving anything on the table for the final four races. Certainly the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday made clear Verstappen’s approach to securing his fourth title. He will be as ruthless as ever, perhaps because he is rattled like no time since Lewis Hamilton took him to the wire in 2021.
Norris and Verstappen had gone wheel to wheel at the previous round in Austin, with the Briton punished for going off track while trying to overtake the world champion. It was a decision many considered unfair in that Verstappen had deliberately been too hot into the corner and forced Norris off. There was disquiet and before Mexico a meeting with drivers and the FIA to discuss how to better define what are known as the driving guidelines, which govern what is legal in attacking and defending through a corner.
In Mexico once more they clashed and this time Verstappen was pulled up. Penalised once for forcing Norris wide in his defence at turn four and then shortly afterwards in launching a dive-bomb attack up the inside of turn seven and gaining a place in doing so by going off.
Norris finished second, five seconds back from the winner, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, while Verstappen, after his 20-second penalty, was sixth. The result enabled Norris to close the gap to his rival to 47 points, still a big ask but he remains optimistic, with the next round in Brazil this weekend.
Verstappen’s reaction, however, was perhaps instructive of how he viewed what happened in the race. “The problem is when you are slower you are being put in these kind of positions. I am not going to give up easily,” he said. “We are too slow. That is my problem.”
The suggestion appears to be that he has no issues in driving in an aggressive fashion – and one adjudged illegal in Mexico – when he feels he is forced to do so because he is on the back foot. Noticeably, an attitude that feels all too familiar from when Hamilton came at him with a quicker car in the closing stages of 2021 and the Dutchman employed similar tactics.
He has been accused of gaming the rules and it seems he knows it given the general equanimity with which he took the penalties. “Can the rules be better? Maybe yes, maybe not,” he said. “It’s always the same thing. I just drive how I think I have to drive.”
By driving in said fashion, having taken the place illegally from Norris, it was to his advantage. Norris was tucked up behind the Red Bull for the first stint until the pit stops during which time Sainz was able to open up a lead Norris could not close down. A delay without whichNorris would have at least a shot at the win and taking more points off Verstappen. It is hard not to imagine this scenario was in Verstappen’s mind when he made that wild dive to get in front of Norris at turn seven.
The Dutchman is not only quick but he is clever and would have been playing every angle, especially as the pace he fears the car is lacking became clear.
Removing the penalty he finished 40sec behind Sainz and without it would probably have been fourth at best, perhaps even fifth. If Norris’s teammate, Oscar Piastri, had qualified better he would be expected to be in that mix at the front as well and on the form of the McLaren also in front of Verstappen, relegating him to potentially fifth or sixth.
A Norris win in Brazil would mean as much as a 15-point swing in his favour and suddenly that lead does not look quite so comfortable. This is what is driving Verstappen to try to exploit every possible angle and walk a fine line between what is considered acceptable and what is not. The stewards in Mexico released a statement that Verstappen was very much on the wrong side of the driving guidelines.
How this pans out in the final races could be decisive, especially if McLaren and Ferrari maintain their advantage over Red Bull, while the drivers want action to clarify their rules of engagement sooner rather than later. George Russell, a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, welcomed the decisions in Mexico. “I’m glad to see those incidents were punished and I suspect moving forward in Brazil what we saw today and what we saw last week you won’t be able to get away with,” he said.
Russell noted pointedly that after the meeting of the drivers and the FIA in Mexico “19 out of 20” were in agreement they wanted the guidelines changing as soon as possible. He did not identify the lone voice in opposition.
