Max Verstappen has clashed with championship title rival Lando Norris in both of the last two races, and other members of the grid are ready to take the McLaren star’s side.
George Russell has pointed straight at Max Verstappen that every other driver on the F1 grid intends to make the rules even stricter as far as unfair maneuvers are concerned.
Verstappen has had contact with his world championship title rival Lando Norris in both the last two races. At the United States Grand Prix two weeks ago, Norris was given a five-second penalty for overtaking Verstappen off the racing surface.
However, Red Bull man was given 20-second penalty to his total timing by the stewards because they did not approve his attempts to fight Norris in the Mexican GP race on Sunday. Russell has been urging F1 to clarify its rules regarding the overtaking process.
The Mercedes star serves as a director for the Grand Prix Drivers Association. And he has now warned that virtually the entire grid is on Norris’ side in his recent battles with Verstappen.
“I think the stewards are totally on board with what needs to change,” Russell said. “Our view is, I think the biggest discussion is they wanted to wait until 2025, so it’s something consistent through this year.
“I would say 19 out of 20 drivers said, ‘well, if it’s incorrect, make the change today’. And I’m glad to see those incidents were punished and I suspect moving forward in Brazil what we saw today and what we saw last week you won’t be able to get away with.
You presume [it should be easy to change if everyone agrees], but it sometimes seems more difficult than it has to be when things have to get approved and we’ve got to go to a vote app. But as I said, 19 out of 20, we’re all aligned on where it needs to be.
In the current time there are some features that are simply…it’s close to laughing, it’s close to fair play, it’s very close to sporting but it is almost tough to say that is unfair now. Looking obviously you could argue that the first one was maybe sixty forty. Last one I’ve not seen anything like that probably brazil [2021].
Norris only attempted to overtake Verstappen at Turn 4 on Sunday but was pushed wide by the Red Bull and cut across the grass and both the drivers went off track at Turn 8 which they suffered and allowed Charles Leclerc to overtake them.
Verstappen was penalized a 10 second penalty for the first incident and a few laps later the announcer informed everyone that Verstappen would receive another 10 second penalty. But the Red Bull star could not dwell much on the punishments.
It does not matter whether you support it or not because once you are on the field, those penalties are given. That was also honestly not my biggest problem of the race, my biggest problem was that we just had no pace,” he said.
It was difficult here on the tyres, couldn’t really push which I could not try to follow Ferrari and McLaren. I mean I realized that was going to be a challenge. And it never felt great so, yeah, I knew that it was going to be very difficult to keep them behind.”