Lando Norris makes his feelings crystal clear about the pit exit incident with Max Verstappen

Lando Norris did not think too much of the pit exit incident with Max Verstappen during the F1 Japanese GP on Sunday (April 6) and put it down to racing. The McLaren driver and the Red Bull star were embroiled in a race-long battle with each other, and the win ultimately came down to the pit stops.

In the pitstops, Max Verstappen's pitstop was a second slower than Lando Norris' and that gave the McLaren driver the opportunity to be released side by side with the Red Bull driver. At the pit exit, while the Dutch driver maintained his line, the British driver ended up running over the grass.

After the incident, Lando Norris came on the radio complaining that Max Verstappen pushed him off. The replays showed that there was no merit to those claims. After the race, Norris was questioned about his view on the incident, and the driver brushed it aside as simply racing with Max Verstappen. He told Sky Sports:

"It’s racing, I think. He was still ahead, it kind of squeezes into one, and Max is the last guy I expect to give me any space… in a good way, in a racing way. So, nothing more than that."

Talking about the race, Lando Norris felt that he ultimately lost it in qualifying on Saturday when Max Verstappen qualified on pole ahead of him. Once that happened, he would have struggled to make up ground as we eventually saw. He said:

"I guess I just lost out yesterday. Max drove a good race today, no mistakes. The pace was too similar today to do anything more. Long race, a lot of pushing. It was a flat out race from start to finish, so tough, but just not enough today, nothing special that we had that we could get Max on. They were quick and no mistakes, so he deserved it."

Lando Norris tips the hat to Max Verstappen and Red Bull for the weekend

Looking back at the weekend, both Red Bull and Max Verstappen continued to work relentlessly, making improvements bit by bit in every session to ultimately peak in qualifying. Lando Norris tipped his hat to the driver-team combination as he said that the duo deserved to win this weekend. He told the aforementioned publication:

"I think it’s still been a very good weekend. Obviously, we didn’t get the positions that we wanted. We’re fighting for a win every weekend, but they deserved it. Both Red Bull and Max deserved it this weekend. They’re quick, they’ve been catching up, they’ve obviously made some improvements, and as a team, we didn’t have enough this weekend. So we’re going to have to work harder for the next one."

Lando Norris has now seen his championship lead slashed to just one point after the first three races, with Max Verstappen right behind him.