Lando Norris said Max Verstappen was “not racing very smart” after his intense battles with both McLaren drivers in the Miami Grand Prix.
Norris lost four positions on the first lap after ending up off the road trying to pass Verstappen, and both he and race-winner Oscar Piastri later had multi-lap battles with the Dutchman.
Briton Norris said he believed the delay Verstappen caused to his own race by battling with the McLarens cost the four-time champion third place to George Russell.
The Mercedes driver passed Verstappen by pitting under a virtual safety car, but Norris’ argument is that the Red Bull would have been further ahead of Russell had he not fought so hard against him and Piastri.
Norris said: “He’s fighting hard, but it’s up to him to do that. He’s ruining his own race. He’s not racing very smart.”
Norris added: “He probably could have finished third today, and he didn’t because of that. So yeah, he’s fighting, that is always expected, but that’s what it is.”
Verstappen said: “Honestly it’s not frustrating at all (to lose a podium). We are here to win and today we were miles off that, so it doesn’t really matter if you are a P3 or P4.
“I had nothing to lose, so I also just wanted to have a bit of fun out there.”
Norris lost out on a likely race win as a result of his first-lap incident with Verstappen.
He challenged the Red Bull on the outside of the first corner, and when Verstappen ran slightly deep, Norris cut back and tried to pass around the outside of the second corner.
Verstappen took the racing line, appearing to flick his car towards Norris, and the McLaren went off the track into the run-off area and slipped to sixth.
Had he backed off, Norris could have been the leading McLaren driver to attack Verstappen and given the car’s dominant pace may well have won the race.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “With the benefit of hindsight, let’s say that considering the situation in corner one-two, it could have been better for Lando to just lift and make sure that he could keep the second position because the car, again, with the benefit of hindsight, we see that he was very fast and he would certainly have passed Max, like Oscar, and then later Lando was in condition to do.
“So I think like every situation in racing, you have to approach with the mindset of reviewing where the opportunities lie. And I think in this case, Lando could have been a little bit more patient.”
Norris was further delayed in racing Verstappen because he passed him at Turn 11 by going off track and had to give the place back, before regaining it for good the following lap.
Stella said he saw no difference in his two drivers’ approaches to racing Verstappen.
“Both drivers were approaching the overtaking in a way that had Lando not gone off by a few centimetres in corner 11, he would have completed the overtaking in what was a similar time. So I don’t think we should over-read too much into situations. I think it’s, like I said before, it’s a matter sometimes of a fraction of a second or a fraction of a metre.
“The big time loss came because of having to give back the position. So I think in terms of overtaking manoeuvre and precision and determination, I don’t see that there’s any difference between both drivers.”
Once he passed Verstappen, Norris closed on Piastri in the second stint, but ran out of time to close the gap.
Piastri’s win was his third in a row and fourth in six races and he leads Norris by 16 points in the championship, with Verstappen a further 16 adrift.
The Australian said: “It was tough at the beginning trying to get past Max. I tried pretty hard to get past, with everything still on my car.
“It was not easy but I picked my moments when I needed to. I could tell that we had a lot of pace from the get-go today, and it was going to be a matter of when I got past, not if.
“But I wanted to do it as efficiently as I could because I knew once Lando got back behind me, he was going to be catching us a lot. I wanted to get through quickly but cleanly. I felt like I did a pretty good job of that, then built a gap. Maybe not the strongest second half of the race of my life, but I think building that gap and being quick at the right times was what I needed.
“It was a matter of just biding my time, waiting for a moment, or forcing him into a moment. That’s what I was able to do. Once I got past, I knew I had to try and build a gap while Lando was behind him. That got me the win.”
