‘This guy is dangerous’: Norris fumes at Verstappen as the two stars clash again, Ferrari win in Mexico

The fierce ongoing battle between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris captured all the attention at the second Formula 1 race in a row, with Norris exclaiming over his team radio in Mexico City, “This guy is dangerous.”

Verstappen was handed two separate 10-second penalties early in the race, one for forcing Norris off the track on turn four, and the other for leaving the track and gaining an advantage just four corners later.

Max Verstappen was penalised twice early in the Mexican grand prix.Credit: Getty Images

While the stewards were examining the incidents, Norris fumed over his McLaren team radio.

But he would have the last laugh in the one-stop, 71-lap race on the highest-altitude track on the F1 calendar at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

Verstappen was forced to serve his penalties when he stopped for fresh rubber at the end of lap 26, coming out in a distant 15th before recovering to finish sixth after a blistering start from the front row of the grid.

But just as they did in the previous race at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, the Ferrari duo of Carlos Sainz jnr and Charles Leclerc took full advantage of the chaos around them to storm away.

Sainz took the win – becoming the first Spanish-speaking driver to do so in Mexico City – from a fast-finishing Norris, while a fading Leclerc still finished third after a hair-raising moment late on the final corner.

It was only the lightning-fast reflexes of a Formula 1 driver that saved him from hitting the wall at speed.

Norris, who set the fastest pace late in the grand prix, ate into Verstappen’s lead in the driver standings, but with just four rounds left in the championship, the Red Bull star has one hand on his fourth-straight title.

Still, it was a dirty day for his team in Mexico, with out-of-form local hope Sergio Perez slugged a penalty for starting the race outside the boundaries of his grid box and finishing a distant 16th, well off the pace.

After a disastrous end to his qualifying, Australian star Oscar Piastri started 17th on the grid and had a frustrating opening to the race on his medium tyres as he struggled to overtake the backmarkers around him.

But as the race progressed, his pace improved, and he clinched a series of telling overtakes under braking – ultimately finishing eighth after pitting for hard tyres late on lap 39.

The action-packed day of racing started with controversy with an incident involving Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, and Yuki Tsunoda – taking the latter two out of the race and bunching up the rest of the field behind the safety car until the end of lap six.

In his track-side interview immediately following the race, Norris again made his feelings about Verstappen clear.

Lando Norris congratulates Carlos Sainz on his win in Mexico City.Credit: Getty Images

“It was a very tough race. The first few laps, a lot of it was just trying to stay in the race and avoid any crashes,” he said.

“I didn’t want to expect such a thing because I respect Max a lot as a driver, but I was ready to expect something like this and this is not very clean driving, in my opinion, but I avoided it and it was a good race.”

A week ago in Austin, it was Norris who was penalised – delivering a podium placing for Verstappen and leading to him extending his championship lead ahead of the Mexico City race.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was interviewed on Sky post-race about Verstappen’s clashes with his title rival, Norris.

“The problem is I think we’re going to get into very dangerous territory of ... at what point is a dive-bomb (overtaking move) going to be OK?” he said.

“So I think, really, the FIA and the drivers need to sit down and decide what is acceptable, and what isn’t. I thought two 10-seconds (penalties) was a bit on the harsh side today.

“You’ve always got to play to the rules, and we’ll look and learn from this race. I think, more important for us to understand today – we just didn’t have the pace … our race pace was nowhere compared to the Ferrari and McLaren, so that’s really where our focus will be over the next five days.”

Verstappen was also interviewed about his side of the controversy.

“The problem is that, of course, when you’re slower, you’re being put in those kinds of positions. I’m not going to give up easily. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s also not about agreeing or disagreeing about the penalty,” he told Sky.

“The thing is, 20 seconds – it’s quite a lot – but the biggest problem of today ... is the race pace, which was really not good and something that we need to analyse because even without those penalties we had no chance at all to fight up front.”

Despite Norris gaining 10 points in the drivers’ championship hunt, Verstappen said he wasn’t worried as the F1 attention shifts to the next race in Brazil.

“This was just a really bad day for us, but I also know that we can do much better than this so we’ll just keep going at it,” he said.

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