Verstappen hits out at Norris' weird move after race-deciding crash

F1 Grand Prix, GP Austria, Red Bull Ring

Championship runaway leader Max Verstappen denies he was “aggressive” towards Lando Norris in their crash at the Austrian Grand Prix, and labelles the Briton's overtaking move as "weird".

Although Max Verstappen dominated the majority of the Austrian Grand Prix, a mistake during his second pit stop saw him lose his comfortable gap to the McLaren of Lando Norris.

The Briton was adamant to capitalize on the opportunity, and with getting within DRS range, he attempted multiple overtaking manoeuvres. The pair eventually came together on Lap 64 at the Red Bull Ring when Verstappen moved slightly to the left to fend off the attack from Norris.

The incident saw both drivers pick up punctures as Norris was forced out of the race due to the damage he sustained. Although Verstappen was able to continue, he only finished fifth.

Speaking of the incident, Verstappen noted; “We were battling today and Lando tried to move around the outside, and then we touched with the rear tyres. It was very hot so immediately we had a puncture.

"From my side it seemed like a weird move but we obviously need to review this and of course we will talk about it. The shape of the corner also provides these kinds of issues sometimes and it is never nice to come together.

"This, however, isn’t currently my main focus as we need to take a look at the overall performance today and the difficulties we had with the car. It was very hard to manage the tyres, the first stint was not too bad and I had a fairly comfortable lead, the second stint was difficult; I think we stayed out a bit too long and then there was the issue with the pit stop.

"The overall Team performance wasn’t what we expected it to be and the strategy didn't work that well in this case. It was a shame because of the lead that we had. There are definitely a few things we need to improve looking to next week and hopefully we can work on the performance, tyres and balance," concluded Verstappen.

His team-mate Sergio Perez had arrived in Spielberg with high hopes as he had been intent on improving on his disappointing results from the previous races.

However, the Mexican struggled for pace, and never looked to be able to take on the fight with his team-mate or the Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari drivers.

“It is very disappointing to be in this position today. The race started really well and we had a solid start, but then I picked up some damage on Lap 1 and the car struggled and was sliding so it was very difficult to fight towards the front.

"With the damage, I was off balance and made a mistake going into the pitlane and got a 5 second time penalty which hindered us towards the end of the race.

Reflecting on his performance at Spielberg, the Mexican added: "There are a few things that we need to look back at and carefully analyse everything, the race pace was a question mark today as I felt like we did some really good improvements after yesterday.

"Overall we lacked performance, it was a very difficult race and one that I struggled a lot in.

"Next weekend I hope we can have a solid, clean showing, and hopefully will be able to sort all of the problems from this weekend to be able to move forwards as there are still a lot of races left. On to Silverstone."

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner tried to pick out the positive result from the Spielberg race, claiming that the team can be delighted to have extended their lead both in the Drivers' and the Constructors' Championships.

"For so much of the race we had it under control, we had an 8 second lead and it looked like it was all ok. We lost some time in the pit stop as we had a wheel nut that stuck on the left rear, that cut Max’s lead down more than we would have liked and from there it was hard racing.

"Lando exceeded track limits and was going to get a penalty but then there was the contact and that was really frustrating, it was tough racing between those two.

"We’ve still managed to get some points though and extend both Championships,10 points in the Drivers' and 16 in the Constructors', the pace of the car has been very strong this weekend, we have had two poles, Max lead the race for all but 9 laps and then the Sprint victory yesterday so it hasn’t been totally disastrous, but, yes, still frustrating, we really would have liked the win, but that is racing," Horner conlcuced.