‘Got what he had coming to him’ - Does Max Verstappen need to change?

Not for the first time, Max Verstappen has found himself at the centre of controversy for clashing with an F1 title rival.

The championship battle reached boiling point at the Mexico City Grand Prix as Verstappen and title rival Lando Norris came to blows for the second consecutive weekend. Unlike in Austin, when Norris picked up a penalty, it was Verstappen's turn to be on the receiving end of punishment from F1’s stewards.

Verstappen was slapped with time penalties for two incidents with Norris on Lap 10 of Sunday’s race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez as they sparred for position. Verstappen first pushed Norris wide at Turn 4, before taking both his Red Bull and his rival’s McLaren off track a few corners later.

Norris criticised Verstappen’s moves as “dangerous” over team radio and went on to describe their latest fallout in Mexico City as being on “another level” to their previous clashes in the United States and Austria.

“I go into a race expecting a tough battle with Max,” Norris said. “It’s clear that it doesn’t matter if he wins or is second - his only job is to beat me in the race. And he’ll sacrifice himself to do that like he did today.

“But I want to have good battles with him. I want to have those tough battles like I’ve seen him have plenty of times, but fair ones. It’s always going to be on the line, it’s always going to be tough with Max. He’s never going to make anyone’s life easy, especially mine, at this point of the year.

“I think today it was just not fair, clean racing. Therefore, I think he got what he had coming to him.”

Ahead of the weekend, Verstappen quipped that he needs the rulebook in his car in order to stay on top of what he feels are “over-regulated” racing rules. Following a drivers’ meeting on Friday, it emerged that F1’s racing guidelines would be revised in the aftermath of the controversy at COTA.

In Sunday’s grand prix, Verstappen overstepped the mark and was subsequently penalised. There were shades of some of the contentious tactics the Dutchman resorted to during his blockbuster 2021 title fight with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.

The second incident in particular, where Verstappen launched an unrealistic and almost desperate lunge to get ahead of Norris, drew criticism.

"The second one I was particularly upset about,” ex-F1 driver turned commentator Martin Brundle told Sky Sports F1. “This [Turn 4 incident] is all the squabble over apex and outside and inside, and he simply didn’t leave racing room.

“This [Turn 7] is just a red mist moment, and actually a ridiculous moment. He’s just carried on the throttle and taken the pair of them off and I think he’s lucky he didn’t get a drive-through penalty or something like that actually.

“I’m so in awe of Max, and I hate it when he does that sort of thing, because he’s better than that. He’s too good to drive like that. I honestly think that was a short-fuse red mist.”

Despite being hit with two separate 10-second time penalties for his driving, it doesn’t sound likely that Verstappen will change his famously-aggressive approach to wheel-to-wheel racing any time soon.

“I just drive how I think I have to drive,” Verstappen said. “Last week it was all right, this week [it is a] 20 seconds penalty.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: “Max will always drive aggressively to what he perceives as the regulations.  When you step over that mark, then of course you’ll get a penalty. I just fear that we’re perhaps overcomplicating it.”

Horner, who presented telemetry data to media including Crash.net in his post-race debrief to defend his driver, added: "It's frustrating in that you don't want to have to consult a rule book on every single overtake, or defence.

"All of these guys have grown up doing a lot of racing, and understand the principles of that. It's just important that we don’t over-regulate into a point where you encourage a behaviour that is not within the guidelines and principles of motor racing.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff disagreed with his Red Bull counterpart. He believes the severity of the penalties handed out to Verstappen will set a precedent and “change the way everybody races” in the future.

"A driver will always push to the limit and when the rules - the execution of the rules or interpretation of the rules - allow a certain way of racing then a driver like Max is always going to exploit it," Wolff said.

"And I think now there has been a new interpretation, execution of those regulations. I think it will change the way everybody races in the future. You won't see that any more."