In the aftermath of the United States Grand Prix, former McLaren engineer Marc Priestley shared his opinion on the penalty given to Lando Norris for overtaking Max Verstappen outside track limits. Priestley believes that Norris’ penalty was a straightforward one and shouldn’t have created any kind of controversy.
The incident occurred during a dramatic late-race battle between Norris and Verstappen. After losing the lead early on, Norris was out of podium contention for most of the race. However, in the closing stages, he closed in on Verstappen, which resulted in an intense fight for the final podium position.
With just four laps to go, Norris made a late move on Verstappen at turn 12 but completed the overtake by going outside the track limits. As he did not hand the position back to Verstappen, the stewards handed him a five-second penalty. Thus, Norris dropped to fourth despite finishing ahead of the Dutchman.
Lando Norris is going to have to start racing smarter against Max Verstappen.
Once again he’s come off second best and McLaren’s hurt him by not recognising prevailing wind all day of the stewards was 5s pens for passing off-track at Turn 12. pic.twitter.com/5EWnuRCKKA
— Josh (@joshuasuttill) October 20, 2024
On BBC’s F1: Chequered Flag podcast, Priestley acknowledged that Verstappen’s aggressive nature played a role in the incident as he explained how the Dutchman tends to “open up the steering a little bit and runs you out wide”. Priestley admitted this move by Verstappen was “borderline”, but not illegal.
However, he also agreed that the penalty was perfectly justified. “There is no question about the fact that Lando Norris overtook Verstappen outside of the track limits, and that’s a slam dunk penalty, it’s not even subjective, is it?”, he added.
The arguments between the two sides have only gotten worse after the incident. Red Bull and Verstappen have been clear in their stance, insisting that it’s not allowed to overtake outside the track limits. McLaren and Norris, on the other hand, argue that the penalty was harsh and ruined what was a good on-track battle.
Advantage to Verstappen in the title fight
While the discussions rage on, the penalty did little to affect the standings in the championship as Verstappen now leads Norris by 57 points compared to the 54-point lead before the Grand Prix.
The Dutchman is still the favorite to win the title as this big of an advantage has never been overturned in F1 history. However, it must be noted that nothing is a given in F1. It will only take one DNF for Verstappen to lose a significant portion of his advantage over the British driver, who can still catch him up, but is unlikely to do so.
But the way the Dutchman has maximized his results despite having a car with a multitude of issues, he may not have a nightmare weekend like that. Moreover, Norris’ tendency to miss out on race wins is helping Verstappen keep the points buffer he currently has. And that could be the case till the last race in Abu Dhabi.
