Verstappen says racing rules “overregulated” amid Norris US GP fight fallout
Max Verstappen's tactics against Lando Norris came under fire after their US GP battle
Max Verstappen feels the current Formula 1 racing guidelines are overregulated, as he refutes claims that he never intended to make Turn 12 in his United States Grand Prix fight with Lando Norris.
"It’s quite impressive that people can read my mind [with apex tactics]. It’s crazy," Verstappen said.
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"I always try to make the corner, I didn’t want to look for a shortcut, so I don’t even know what to answer to this one. We’ve always said we wanted to race each other hard, that’s what we like to do.
"It was quite a difficult second stint. I lost a lot of grip on the front axle, it’s very difficult to brake. That’s what made my defence more difficult, because I know that if I braked a little bit too late, I would lock up and I really didn’t have the front grip.
"It wasn’t easy for me out there. I think all in all we still had a positive weekend for us, but still a few things of course that we want to do better, to be in that fight.
"I honestly believed, going into the race, that I would be in the fight, and we weren’t, so that wasn’t ideal. But at least it did show some promising signs that maybe we could be back in the fight.”
"I think we are getting to a stage where I always need the book in the car! If you look of course over the years, the book has grown quite a lot,” Verstappen said.
"It is definitely overregulated, but then I can see the other point of if we take rules away, and there’s again an incident… ‘Oh, you need more rules! We need to be strong about this!’
"It’s always the same thing. In the past, we have maybe less rules, and you have the same argument: ‘You know, we need to be strong on this, on that’. It’s always the same story."
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/vers ... /10666381/
Norris still disagrees with Austin F1 penalty: 'Verstappen went in too hard'
"I’ve not spoken to Max at all because he did what he thought was right and I did what I thought was right. I still disagree and as a team we disagree," Norris reflected.
"I think what we saw with George [Russell]'s and [Valtteri] Bottas’s version in some ways was very similar to ours: I was completely ahead of Max, I was over a car length ahead of him. I was no longer the attacking car, he was.
"I was ahead of Max, I was having to defend, he was the one attacking me and effectively he has gone in too hard and overtaken off the track.
"I just maintained my position so it is something I am sure we will discuss as it has been a big talking point since last weekend. A lot of other drivers didn’t agree with it, teams didn’t agree with it.
"I think the point is that he only stayed ahead of me at the apex because he went off the track, he would not have been ahead at the apex if he braked where he should’ve braked and stayed on the track. I think that is obvious."
"It is not as easy as just saying . Do I need to make some changes? Yes. And adapt a little bit more. But is everything I am doing wrong? Also no," Norris contended.
"I had a lot of fun and I respected the battle that we had. He still ended up on top and I need to be beating him. So some little things I need to change but I don’t need to change my whole approach.
"Max is probably the best in the world at what he does. When I am going up against the best in the world it is not going to be an easy thing to do.
"He has been racing in this position for longer than I have. I am definitely not doing a perfect job, but I'm not doing a bad job.
"I think there are certain things I don’t agree with but I still want to be racing, I don’t want there to be rules for absolutely everything.
"I just believed the way I got a penalty last weekend and the consequences of how that happened I didn’t agree with, and that’s the only thing that needs to be changed. It is clear what his intentions are and it is difficult for me to get around."
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/norr ... /10666359/
