Max Verstappen claims his critics lack the title-winning mentality to understand his 'over-the-limit' moves

Max Verstappen has claimed that the critics of some of his moves during his battles with Lando Norris don't have the championship "mentality" and hence can't understand why those moves are made. The Red Bull driver had a very eventful 2024 F1 season where he fended off a late surge from his rivals to clinch the title.

After a strong start from Red Bull, Miami GP brought a shift in momentum as McLaren's upgraded car became a thorn in the side of Red Bull and Max Verstappen. While the RB20 continued to digress over the season, the Woking-based squad surged and helped Lando Norris mount what would be an outside challenge for the title.

The challenge ultimately failed, but there were races where Max Verstappen was very aggressive in his wheel-to-wheel battles with Lando Norris and had to incur penalties from the FIA stewards and criticism from the media. Addressing the criticism of some of his moves in the battle against Norris, especially Mexico GP, Verstappen said (as quoted by Autosport):

"No, not at all in that race. I think I won points there. So like I said, I will always do everything to get the maximum result for a championship. And of course, sometimes you have to go to the limit or over the limit and not everyone understands that. Not everyone has that mentality.”

Max Verstappen had started the 2024 season in dominant fashion, as Red Bull had the fastest car on the grid. He used the car to go on a dominant run, where until the F1 Miami GP he had dropped only a single race, and even that was primarily due to reliability issues.

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McLaren wasn't prepared to fight for the drivers' championship, according to Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen was questioned about the possibility of Lando Norris and McLaren winning the title this year with the car they had. In response, the four-time champion felt that the team still had a lot to learn when it came to constantly competing at the front of the grid.

According to Verstappen, McLaren was not completely ready in 2024 and hence fell short.

"They've had a very good car this year. But I think it's also clear that they still had a lot to learn, so to speak, to really constantly compete. Of course, they did well for the constructors' championship, but they could have prepared much better for the drivers' championship."

It would be interesting to see how Lando Norris and McLaren bounce back from this because this was the first time the team was in a title fight, and while they lost the drivers' title, they still won the constructors in the first attempt.