Norris had accused Verstappen of changing his line in the braking zone, which is forbidden in F1, and the Dutchman acknowledged indirectly that had been the case.
“Naturally, there is always a human reaction when someone dives down the inside or outside that you have a bit of a reaction to it,” said Verstappen. “But I felt everything I did was nothing massively over the top.
“Of course, like how you design a car, you try to go to the edge of the rules, maybe you find some grey areas here and there, and that’s the same how you race because otherwise you will never be a top driver or succeed in life anyway.”
Norris, who trails Verstappen in the drivers’ championship by 81 points, added: “Max isn’t going to want to crash and ruin his own chances. I don’t think he’s going to change too much, and I don’t think I need to change much.
“There are things from both sides we probably wanted to do better. But avoiding an incident from moving under braking is probably the biggest thing.
“The stewards need to be aware that something can easily go wrong. You’re defending and that’s fine, but at some point that has a limit and it needs to be imposed.”
Asked if they could remain friends if their battles continued for a long time, Verstappen said: “I think so. It also depends on your personalities. Lando is a great guy, a really nice person, who loves F1 and racing and is very passionate about it.
“You also have to realise that he is fighting for his second win, I am fighting for my 62nd, so your emotions are a little bit different. I know that from myself, when I was fighting for my first wins, that’s what I also said, ‘Let’s let it cool off’.”
Another issue to arise from Austria was that Norris earned a five-second penalty for going off track while trying to pass Verstappen, despite immediately giving the place back, because it was conflated with a warning he had previously been given for exceeding track limits.
Norris himself and Williams driver Alex Albon both said that decision was “silly”.
Verstappen admitted it was “a bit of an odd one”.
He said Red Bull have an upgrade on their car this weekend, but that he expected the battle to be close on track with McLaren.
Norris’ team-mate Oscar Piastri said he expected Verstappen to be “really tough to beat” because of his car’s strengths in the sort of high-speed corners that abound at Silverstone.
2024-07-04 16:38:27
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