Norris Expects To 'Crash More' With Verstappen As He Doesn't Care About Friendship Off-Track

Sunday, 11 August 2024 at 16:00

Lando Norris suggested that he expects to be involved in more crashes with other drivers, namely Max Verstappen, in the future.

McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris has had a few hard wheel-to-wheel battles with Max Verstappen during the first 14 Grand Prix weekends of the 2024 season.

One of these battles (the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix) even resulted in a collision, which forced the 24-year-old out of the race.

While all drivers want to avoid crashing, Norris said in an interview with RacingNews365 that he expects to be involved in more accidents like that in the future.

"I expect to crash more in the future with different people, with Max. Not because it's an expectation of I expect to crash with them - it's just those scenarios and circumstances always happen."

"With another five or ten years in F1, you're going to have those situations at some point."

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Some fans accused Norris in the past of not racing Max Verstappen as hard as he would some other drivers because they are friends off the track.

However, the McLaren driver suggested he "couldn't care less" about what happens off the track once he has his helmet on and is aiming for the victory.

"I couldn't care less if I played padel with someone last week or went out for dinner with someone. "It doesn't change what I want to do on track, which is to win. If anything, it makes you want to beat them more, rather than less."

"For me, it's just two different worlds and what I do away from a track. How I act and the people I’m with away from the track couldn’t be any further apart from my mentality of being a racing driver and being inside the car."

Although he has quite a sizeable gap to close, Norris could still possibly challenge for the title in 2024. If Verstappen, in the lead, suffered another DNF, the battle would be on. Will we see another collision between the Norris and the Red Bull Racing driver again in 2024?