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Toto Wolff gave his thoughts on Andrea Stella's comparison between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris' collision with that of the 2021 title rivalry involving Lewis Hamilton. The Mercedes boss does not think that the Austrian GP incident has any correlation with Verstappen and Hamilton's season-long battle for supremacy.
Verstappen and Norris collided during the recently concluded Austrian Grand Prix at Red Bull Ring. The incident resulted in the McLaren driver suffering a DNF and losing plentiful points. This certainly did not sit well with Stella, and the McLaren boss went on to slam Verstappen over his on-track ordeal.
Stella, in his post-race interview, told the media that FIA should have been stricter with their punishment towards Max Verstappen. As this was not the case, it contributed to an on-track tangle between the two drivers at Spielberg. Wolff said (via Motorsportweek):
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"I don’t think you can take this conclusion. It’s been so long and from our side, we are in a different place today, and I think he is. It takes two to tango. I haven’t seen Lando and Max’s race to be honest."
"I haven’t seen how all of that came about. I first need to watch it before I have an opinion but I wouldn’t see that as a big consequence of 2021 not having been managed well to what happened in 2024. I don’t think they have a correlation.”
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton competed for the title in 2021, where they had plentiful wheel-to-wheel tussles and DNFs. In Monza, the two took each other out in Turn 2, leaving each other stranded on the gravel trap.
In Silverstone, Hamilton, with his left front tangled Verstappen's right rear, sending the latter off the track at high speed. The entire season saw controversies one after another, and back-to-back digs from the drivers, the team principals, and the teams involved.
Max Verstappen unraveled his thoughts on the Austrian GP collision
Max Verstappen recently spoke about the controversial collision between him and Lando Norris at Red Bull Ring. The Red Bull driver stated that he did not want to crash with his 'friend' and the entire incident was unintentional.
"You race hard for a race win," Verstappen said to the media, "As a friend you never want to touch or crash, but it happened today. At the end of the day, it's part of racing. I think we are both, of course, disappointed with the outcome."
Max Verstappen started the race on pole and was looking towards his third consecutive race win of the season. However, the on-track tussle with Lando Norris, who started the race from P2, ruined his race.
As Verstappen and Norris tangled, they damaged their tires. The Red Bull driver limped to the pit lane, changed tires, and returned to finish the race in P5, along with a ten-second time penalty for causing a collision. Lando Norris, on the other hand, retired from the race.
