Jack Plooij was still critical at the table of the Ziggo Sport Race Café on Sunday evening. In the meantime, Plooij has been able to calmly watch the Austrian Grand Prix again, and he believes that he was too negative about Max Verstappen in his initial assessment. Plooij also points out a point where Lando Norris clearly made a mistake.
Plooij appeared on the morning show of Radio 538 to look back on the race at the Red Bull Ring, in which Verstappen and Norris got into a heated argument. ‘I think you can almost say that they are two ex-friends now’, Plooij responded to the remark that both drivers are friends. ‘Lando Norris also said immediately after the race: if Max doesn’t come to me now and say that he made a mistake, then the friendship is over. Norris did put the ball on the spot.’
It is still unclear how Norris got back to Monaco from Austria. ‘It is still a bit unclear, but normally Norris flies back with Max, but I think he took a taxi now’, laughs Plooij. Helmut Marko confirmed earlier that Norris did not fly back with Verstappen, although it is unclear whether this was planned in advance.
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Verstappen wrongly convicted
‘Actually, quite a lot happened’, says Plooij about the race. ‘Max seemed to be heading for a victory, but then there was a final pit stop, and that went wrong with Verstappen. It rarely happens, but the left rear tire didn’t come off properly. That caused Max to lose time. At that moment, Norris also came into the pit lane, which meant that Max had to wait until Norris had passed, so that also cost extra time. Instead of Max driving calmly for five or six seconds ahead of Norris – and you know that he won’t get into the DRS – Norris was very close behind Max.’
Then the hard fight started. ‘Then you can expect Norris to make attacks. Max is a tough defender, so that went wrong. Norris wanted to overtake Max, but he touched Max’s left rear tire with his right front wheel. They both went flat immediately, and that made it look like Max made an extra steering movement to the left’, Plooij explains why he was so critical of the champion on Sunday evening. ‘That made us all say: that’s not good. We all blamed Max a little bit for that’, Plooij shows guiltily. The pit reporter of Ziggo Sport has now revised his opinion.
‘The stewards also blamed him, because they gave him a ten-second penalty’, Plooij continues. ‘If everyone thinks and says that Max is guilty… Max also got wrong information from Red Bull, because Christian Horner said that he had done nothing wrong and that it was Lando. If you give that kind of information to your driver, he gets out and thinks: what is going on now?’ Race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase also expressed his support for Verstappen.
Norris Failure
Verstappen still managed to finish fifth, despite the penalty, and thus gain ten important points, while Norris dropped out. A mistake by Norris himself, according to Plooij. ‘He caused that himself. They both had a flat tire and damage. Max brings his car back to the pit lane very neatly, and Lando destroys everything, because he is too angry. He destroyed everything’, the analyst notes. ‘I think that is also the difference in experience, because Lando is a bit younger and less experienced. He shouldn’t have done that. The whole car is destroyed.’
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‘It’s very exciting, but it didn’t have to be this way’, says Plooij, who regrets that the fight ended in training. ‘Max is of course an aggressive driver, that’s true. He doesn’t think: I’ll just open the door, come on over, Lando. He also got two penalty points on his license. He has two, and you’re allowed twelve, so that’s not such a big problem. The most important thing is that those two guys sit down together and discuss it together, and then come out together and say that they’ve discussed it and continue racing.’
Finally, Plooij looked ahead to the Grand Prix in England, where Verstappen cannot count on much support. ‘The English press, because it is an English game, is of course pumping everything up for next week. It is a spectacle, but that is not really what you want’, Plooij concludes. The British media are massively criticizing Verstappen, while Norris’ role in the duel is not discussed much.
