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Max Verstappen and Lando Norris finally crashed during the Austrian GP and the F1 world is up in arms. There's a lot of outrage amongst fans, where many have just flatly blamed either of the two drivers and jumped to conclusions
The reality is a bit more complex because this was not the first time that Lando Norris and Max Verstappen had battled for a win. They did that a day earlier in the sprint. They also did that in the F1 Canadian GP.
Many people forget that the race in Canada saw Lando Norris pull off a rather clean move on Max Verstappen. That race didn't involve any movement under braking or even a case of either driver pushing the other driver's understanding of what's acceptable and what isn't.
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What was different in Austria then? What led to Max Verstappen and Lando Norris battling like the championship depended on it. There's a deeper method to this madness that has seemingly been passed over by far too many pundits.
Let's try and understand, because this would give you a much deeper insight of why you have Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, two brilliant and hungry talents, going hammer and tongs against each other.
Max Verstappen knows when to keep a lid on the extremes
Since 2021, we've not seen this version of Max Verstappen. That was the last season where he was actually desperate when it came to winning, and we had races like the Saudi Arabian GP or the Brazilian GP where some of his moves were a step too far.
Since 2021, however, he's not played within the grey areas. Contrary to that, he's been a very measured driver who knew when to take risks and when not to. This was a feature of his racing in the 2022 F1 Bahrain GP again when he was battling with Charles Leclerc.
It was not a race where Max Verstappen would just send a move and give no inch to Charles. It was a race where he practiced restraint. Since then, he has practiced that against almost every driver including Lando Norris.
Hence, it's not a case of Max Verstappen 'just being a dirty driver' or 'lacking the maturity'. There's more to what Max did than what meets the eye and it has to do with the fact that he was battling Lando Norris.
Why Max Verstappen and Lando Norris ramped things up in Austria
Up until the last few races in Canada, Barcelona, and now in Austria, Max Verstappen has faced a challenge from different quarters. Early in the season, it was Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in Ferrari, then there was an interspersed challenge from Lando Norris and George Russell as well.
Through all of this, what has become quite clear is that there is one team and one driver who has come out as the primary challenger for Max. That team-driver combination is the McLaren-Lando Norris duo. We've had a "Max-Lando" top 2 in Canada, Barcelona, Imola, and Miami.
While Max has won most of these battles, he's cognizant of the fact that Lando might just be his primary challenger for the rest of these regulations. The 2024 F1 title battle is as good as over, but there's a bigger play that both Lando Norris and Max Verstappen are aware of.
Dress rehearsal for the 2025 F1 title fight
Both Max Verstappen and Lando Norris have more or less figured out that the title battle for the 2025 F1 season is going to be fought between these two. Unless something drastic happens with Ferrari or Mercedes, or there's a team that finds a silver bullet and just steals the march on everyone, Max vs Lando is what we're looking at.
This is precisely why Max has now made it a point not to give an inch on the track when it comes to Lando. Both of these drivers now know what is at stake, and now the battle is not for who wins a race in Austria, or who wins a race at any other track, the battle is to gain an upper hand as they go into the 2025 F1 season.
Max is well aware that the position McLaren has found itself in right now is not going to fall away or lose a significant amount. In 2025, the slate will be wiped clean and it all starts on a level playing field. That is precisely why he doesn't want to give Lando the confidence that he could beat him in a head-to-head battle.
This is the first time since 2021 that Max knows he has a competitor, and he's not going to give him any level of even a false sense of confidence that they can beat him. Does it lead to a few desperate moves? Yes, it does.
Does it lead to a few penalty points here and there? Sure. But overall, he drew a marker when it came to Lando because, while others don't see it, the battle for the 2025 F1 season has already begun.
Learning from Lewis Hamilton's mistakes
Before the 2021 F1 season, Max Verstappen and Red Bull still had an air of confidence when it came to the title battle. They were going up against a 7-time world champion in Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes, a team that had not lost anything since 2014.
Yet there was an air of confidence about them. Why? Well, one of the biggest reasons behind it was the fact that the Red Bull-Max Verstappen combination had gotten the better of the Mercedes-Lewis Hamilton combo in the past. The biggest issue for Max, when it came to challenging Lewis consistently in the past, was having a competitive car.
Whenever he'd had one, he did beat Lewis. The 2019 German GP, the 2019 Brazilian GP, and so many others had shown that if Red Bull brought a competitive car, Max could do the job. This was the confidence that Verstappen had heading into the 2021 F1 title battle, and he used it throughout the season.
McLaren and Lando Norris don't have that confidence yet because they've not beaten Max in a straight fight. They won in Miami because the safety car played a role. Since then, they've lost in Imola, they've lost in Canada, and they've lost in Barcelona. At this stage, we could add that they've lost the opportunity to win in Austria as well.
There have been many F1 pundits in the last few days who have tried to put down what happened in Austria as 'Max just going back to his old self' but there's more than that. There's a method to this madness. There's a driver who has seen what happened in the past and learned from it.
Most importantly, he's not going to give an inch to Lando on the track in the future. There are going to be more battles between these two and the intensity is only going to get ramped up.
Good news for us fans, isn't it?
