‘I rest my case’: F1 analyst destroys Verstappen, McLaren boss drops scathing truth bomb

F1 commentators have torn Max Verstappen’s defence to shreds after he took out Lando Norris and left McLaren’s boss fuming.

Max Verstappen’s aggressive driving style has come under fire after he took out a championship rival in an incident that gives his haters more fuel for criticism.

Verstappen took out Lando Norris Verstappen and Norris collided on lap 64 of the Austrian Grand Prix, with Red Bull’s three-time champion adjudged to have caused the accident by swerving to his left to hit Norris’s McLaren causing punctures to both cars.

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Verstappen managed to pit and finish fifth, despite receiving a 10-second penalty for his reckless driving, but Norris retired after limping to the pits in his damaged car.

George Russell won the race ahead of Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz.

In a five-minute post-race monologue, Sky Sports analyst Anthony Davidson said there was no doubt Verstappen was at fault for not giving Norris enough room and moving in the braking zone going into a corner, which is against the rules.

“Moving on the braking zone, guilty as charged as I’m concerned,” Davidson said of the first close call on lap 55.

“That was really risky. We’ve seen Max in the past get hit in the back by his own teammate Daniel Ricciardo, Baku (Azerbaijan GP in 2018) springs to mind straight away.

“He’s very lucky to avoid contact there. Lando did really well to avoid it. There was definite moving in the braking zone. As Andrea Stella said, that’s not allowed in the rules. They wrote that rule because of Max. It doesn’t get more clear than that.”

Watch Anthony Davidson’s takedown of Max Verstappen in the video above

Max Verstappen moved three times. Photo: Twitter, Formula 1 via @mssingha.

At one stage Norris did get ahead of Verstappen, but the world champion was allowed to keep the lead despite going wide off the track.

Davidson pointed out Verstappen wasn’t penalised for pushing Charles Leclerc wide on his race winning overtake at the same circuit in 2019.

“He’s (Norris) lost confidence in who he’s racing (Verstappen),” Davidson said.

“He gets the braking spot on, he doesn’t go off the track I don’t feel like he pushed Max off the track.

“You’re always looking for a bit of consistency. So when Red Bull are saying, ‘We were pushed off the track’, well you don’t get a penalty for that as we’ve seen in the past.”

There were other close calls on lap 59 and lap 63, before Verstappen pushed Norris off and punctured his tyre on lap 64.

“This was the move that was going to win Lando the race,” Davidson said.

“Is there still a car’s width? There’s not a car’s width. I rest my case.”

Verstappen is on track to claim a fourth consecutive title this year but taking out his rivals in rare moments of competition will not help his legacy.

He leads the championship on 237 points ahead of Norris (156) and Leclerc (150).

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said Verstappen was clearly at fault, adding he should have been punished more harshly for previous skirmishes with Lewis Hamilton, such as the one in Brazil in 2021.

“I see that the entire population in the world know who is responsible except for a group of people (Red Bull),” Stella said on Sky Sports.

“But the problem behind it is that if you don’t address these things, honestly, they will come back.

“They have come back today because they were not addressed properly in the past when there were some fights with Lewis. That needed to be punished in a harsher way like this. You learn how to race in a certain way, which we can consider fair and square.

“(There have been) many episodes. The fact is that we have so much respect for Red Bull, so much respect for Max. They don’t need to do this. They don’t need to do this as a way to almost compromise your reputation. Why would you do that?”

Andrea Stella wasn’t copping Verstappen’s defence. Photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images/AFP.

“The stewards found that Max was fully to blame in this episode,” he added.

“So it’s not about racing in a driver’s way, it’s about racing within the regulations and the regulations must be enforced in a way that is effective because when a car is out of the race as a consequence of this accident, the punishment needs to be proportionate to the outcome.

“And we had before the incident, twice moving under braking. So I think it’s just evident we have to enforce the way to go racing because we want to have fun and we want to enjoy.”

Norris, who has emerged as a championship contender and was vying for his second win of the season, said he would lose respect Verstappen if the Dutchman wouldn’t accept responsibility for the incident.

“It depends what he says to me,” Norris said.

“If he admits it, OK. If he says ‘I was stupid’ and admits he ran into me and it was reckless then small amount of respect. Maybe.”

Verstappen and his Red Bull team took a defensive position and blamed Norris for his aggressive approach.

Lando Norris was not happy. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

He had no hope with that punctured tyre. (Photo by MAX SLOVENCIK / APA / AFP) / Austria OUT

“It’s easy to see this from the outside and to judge and whatever,” said Verstappen.

“And everyone has their own opinion. He is so late on the brakes with his dive bombs. But it is what it is and it is never nice when you come together.”

He added that he needed to look back and see how it happened.

“We had a bad strategy and bad pitstops so we also created this for ourselves. The car felt weird and it got worse and worse.”

Nico Hulkenberg came home sixth for Haas ahead of Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull, Kevin Magnussen in the second Haas, Daniel Ricciardo of RB and Pierre Gasly of Alpine.

Charles Leclerc finished 11th in the second Ferrari after a race of four pit-stops following a first lap incident.

Oscar Piastri finished second as he edges closer to a maiden GP win. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Piastri may well have claimed his maiden F1 Grand Prix victory if it wasn’t for a pesky track limits penalty in qualifying.

The 22-year-old finished two seconds behind Russell but it could have been a different story had he not had his best lap time deleted for barely exceeding track limits in qualifying.

His time was third fastest but with the penalty he had to start seventh on the grid and work his way through the field.

Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz said after the race: “Oscar Piastri chased Carlos Sainz for P4 and got him, and in the end finished 1.9 seconds off the win.

“Of course had Oscar Piastri not started where he did on the grid with the penalty and started on the second row, arguably Oscar Piastri would be on top of the podium showering me with champagne today, and not George Russell.”

Piastri finished second in both the Sprint and Grand Prix, claiming his fourth career podium in a very solid weekend.