Mercedes refutes McLaren’s claims of Max Verstappen’s clash with Lando Norris being result of Lewis Hamilton’s 2021 title fight

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen had one of the most heated rivalries in the history of F1 during 2021.

Mercedes refutes McLaren’s claims of Max Verstappen’s clash with Lando Norris being result of Lewis Hamilton’s 2021 title fight

Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton, and Max Verstappen (images via IMAGO)

Max Verstappen and Lando Norris‘ unfortunate incident at the Austrian GP sabotaged the races for both drivers. Verstappen was blamed for the incident due to which he subsequently received a ten-second time penalty and two penalty points. Multiple people recalled Lewis Hamilton and the Dutchman’s numerous crashes during the controversial 2021 season.

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton collided with each other quite a few times in the 2021 season. The British GP was notably recalled when Verstappen’s race was sabotaged after a colossal crash with Hamilton. Several people believed that Lando Norris’ collision correlated with the unpunished incidents with Hamilton back in 2021. However, Toto Wolff negated any such conclusions to be drawn and mentioned that the team had moved ahead from the previous issues.

I don’t think you can take this conclusion. It’s been so long and from our side, we are in a different place today, and I think he is. It takes two to tango.
Toto Wolff said during a post-race interivew.
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Apart from this, the Austrian boss had not seen the incident between Norris and Verstappen yet. Hence, the 52-year-old would need to first check the incident in detail and then draw conclusions. However, the issues back in 2021 did not have any correlation to what happened in this season. Wolff noted that the Austrian GP crash wasn’t handled well on FIA’s part.

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Similarly to 2021 Wolff felt particularly hard done by the FIA in the controversial end in Abu Dhabi 2021 where former race director Michael Masi allowed cars to overtake the safety car, which was brought out after a crash from former F1 driver Nicholas Latifi’s F1 Career Highlights involved multiple crashes as fans would nickname the Canadian as ‘Crashtifi’ due to this. This ruling from Masi who was later sacked by the FIA for this decision benefitted Max Verstappen who went on to win his first world championship.

I haven’t seen Lando and Max’s race to be honest. I haven’t seen how all of that came about. I first need to watch it before I have an opinion but I wouldn’t see that as a big consequence of 2021 not having been managed well to what happened in 2024. I don’t think they have a correlation.
Toto Wolff added.

Christian Horner claimed Max Verstappen is a ‘hard racer’ and not at fault in the Austrian GP collision

Max Verstappen had to bear the consequences of the incident while Lando Norris walked away Scott-free. Christian Horner had labeled the penalty as unnecessary and a bit harsh. Additionally, the 24-year-old wouldn’t receive any other penalties in the upcoming British GP. Regardless, the Red Bull boss sided with the team’s star over the incident.

Christian Horner and Max Verstappen
Christian Horner and Max Verstappen (Via: Imago)

Horner reckoned Verstappen was a hard racer and McLaren and Norris were aware of that. Subsequently, the 50-year-old pointed out that the Briton was trying to make up for the lost results in the sprint race. Hence, at some point, the two highly capable drivers were bound to clash heads and get involved in a heated situation.

I think Max is a hard racer, and they know that, I think Lando was trying to make up for yesterday. At some point, there was going to be something close between the two of them.
Christian Horner said, as reported by Crash.net.

McLaren showed respect to Verstappen despite the latter not taking the blame for the incident. Hence, Woking has showcased great integrity while the Dutchman isn’t completely wrong on his part. The entire collision was a racing incident and could’ve been avoided. Regardless, moments like these create a highly exciting rivalry between drivers on the grid.

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