Former Formula 1 team manager Peter Windsor does not see how Max Verstappen was to blame for the incident with Lando Norris in Austria. The Briton had already indicated in his post-race analysis that he found it ridiculous how the Dutchman was being talked about. Windsor believes that Verstappen drove like a racer, and that he enjoyed it.
Verstappen received a lot of criticism after the Austrian Grand Prix for his driving during the fight with Norris. The stewards gave him a ten-second time penalty and therefore found him to be at fault in the incident, but many media outlets went even further. Especially when Norris was furious afterwards and did not see how he could have done it differently. Verstappen was much calmer, he was mainly critical of what Red Bull Racing had done wrong as a team. The Dutchman receives few British support, but Windsor is one of the British analysts who did not blame him for the incident.
“I blame the DRS, to be honest,” Windsor said during an interview with Cameron F1 on YouTube. “If we went back to pure racing and the slipstream still provided the advantage that the slipstream always does, I don’t think Lando would be exactly where he was on the track, in a chaotic braking zone,” Windsor believes. “He was thinking: I can’t overtake on the inside, but I’m much quicker than him, so I’m going to go left. That doesn’t happen without DRS. It only happens because of DRS. I’m not saying this to be difficult or to take sides. I’m saying this because I’ve been saying it for 10 years, since DRS was introduced. I’ve always said it’s an artificial rule that doesn’t give you an overtake.”
‘There was enough space inside’
Norris tried to pass Verstappen in Turn 3 on lap 64, where he had been trying for ten laps. When he made his final attempt, he punctured Verstappen’s tyre and had a puncture himself. ‘Because of the speed difference, he couldn’t position his car properly and so he was in a kind of no-man’s land on the left,’ Windsor continues. ‘I don’t blame Max for being in the middle of the road. There was enough space for Lando on the left. And looking at the onboard footage, Max didn’t turn his steering wheel an inch to the left when the braking got heavier,’ the Briton points out.
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‘So how could it have been Max’s fault?’ Windsor wondered out loud. ‘I just don’t see how it could have been. I don’t really blame Lando either, I blame the DRS, like I said.’ The 72-year-old particularly enjoyed the sublime driving style that Verstappen showed during the battle. ‘He takes the apex very differently to Norris. Max turns in much earlier. So when Lando said he moved under braking, I thought: I can’t believe how perfect Max’s move was. He timed it perfectly so that it was part of the approach to the corner. He has the right to do that because there is no rule that prevents him from doing that,’ says Windsor.
Windsor also believes the FIA ​​was wrong
During the fight, Norris ended up outside the white lines a few times, which eventually resulted in him being given a black and white flag for track limits. He was also given a five-second penalty for this, but the FIA ​​only announced this later. ‘Red Bull will certainly feel shortchanged by this, because if they had known this ten seconds earlier, Max would have won that race’, says Windsor. ‘He would have just stayed in the slipstream, and that was it. They didn’t communicate it to the public as quickly as they should have. For me, it has to be real-time.’ Norris was eventually able to leave his car in the pit lane, Verstappen finished the race after a pit stop and still finished fifth.
On Monday morning, the international media headlines were not kind to the three-time world champion. He was called childish, and his driving was reminiscent of 2021, when he was battling Lewis Hamilton for the championship. Autosport ran an opinion piece describing him as a child throwing his toys out of the pram. ‘Well, I don’t think he threw his toys out of the pram. He drove like a racing driver. And I think the opposite, despite all the success and everything he’s achieved, he’s still that pure racer, fresh out of karting, doing what we all want to see,’ Windsor believes.
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‘I mean… I can’t not criticise what Max did in Austria. He was just a racer. And under this very stupid rule he got that penalty,’ the analyst continues. ‘Did I think he was aggressive? A little bit, but do we want drivers who just say: oh yeah, you have DRS, I’ll move aside, I’ll downshift and make it even easier for you?’ says Windsor. ‘Is that what we want? Someone who says: oh yeah, someone’s passing me, I’ve got to make sure I keep the car absolutely straight. That’s pathetic. This (on-track battles, ed.) is motor racing. This is Formula 1.’
‘Without drivers like Verstappen we wouldn’t be talking about this now’
Verstappen may not have fought much on the track in the past two seasons, but Windsor loves how he is now getting involved in the fights and how he drives in the duel with others. ‘And without drivers like Max Verstappen, we wouldn’t all be talking about it now. So whatever that comment was, whoever wrote that, you know, go watch water polo or something and forget Formula 1, I think’, the 72-year-old reacts fiercely. This weekend, the battle between Verstappen and Norris may continue. Formula 1 has settled in Silverstone, McLaren’s home circuit. Whether Norris and Verstappen will fight it out again, we will see on Sunday 7 July.
