“He’s Not the First One to Have Done That”: Despite Precedents, Max Verstappen Blamed for Austria Crash

Former F1 driver Karun Chandhok is the latest to give his opinion about the controversy from last weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix when Max Verstappen and Lando Norris collided. The Indian expert believes that there is no doubt that the Dutchman is to blame for the crash.

While speaking via Sky Sports F1’s official YouTube channel, Chandhok said, “There’s no doubt about the fact that in that particular incident, Max was the one who moved and deviated from his line. But he’s not the first one to have done that“.

Chandhok then pointed out how Carlos Sainz and Verstappen had a similar moment last year. Chandhok believes that since the duo avoided contact on that occasion, Norris and Verstappen were perhaps clumsy in this instance.

The moment of contact between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris… pic.twitter.com/jX7BCGgLQX

— Blaise Bradshaw (@bradshaw877) July 1, 2024

Despite the same, Chandhok believes that the FIA rightly gave Verstappen a 10-second penalty for causing a collision. However, the penalty made little difference to his race as he finished in P5 and had a comfortable margin of over 10 seconds to sixth-placed Nico Hulkenberg to ensure that he would not lose a position.

On the other hand, the incident cost Norris severely. The Briton had no choice but to retire from the race, and failed to score points. Although Chandhok also believes that Verstappen was at fault for the collision, the Dutchman unsurprisingly did not think he could have done anything differently.

Max Verstappen refuses to take the blame

In the aftermath of his collision with Norris, Verstappen was furious after his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase told him that he received a 10-second penalty for it. When informed of the same, the Dutchman replied, “That’s just ridiculous. He [Norris] can’t just send it left and right. What do you want me to do?”

Christian Horner too unsurprisingly defended Verstappen and claimed that it was Norris who “didn’t behave correctly“. However, F1 expert Martin Brundle was not pleased with the Dutchman’s attitude after the collision.

Brundle said, “The trouble is if you approach it like that, it will happen again, won’t it? I don’t agree with that“. After stating the same, Brundle also suggested a theory for why Verstappen drove the way he did.

 

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The Sky Sports F1 expert claimed that the “ridiculous spat between his [Max Verstappen’s] father Jos and team boss Christian Horner” affected him on track. Brundle is referring to the rising tensions between Jos Verstappen and Horner off-track after the latter presumably had a role to play in forcing the former to pull out of the Legends Parade.

Although Brundle has given this theory as a plausible reason for why Max Verstappen struggled during the recently concluded Austrian Grand Prix, it does not seem that this controversy would have affected the 26-year-old much. Max Verstappen is one of the most focused drivers and rarely makes mistakes no matter the pressure he is under.