Red Bull driver Max Verstappen has responded to the backlash he received after the Austrian Grand Prix. Lots of people blamed the Dutchman for his incident with Lando Norris and some even said that Verstappen reverted back to 'Crashstappen' or even 'Verstappen 1.0'.
At the latter stages of the Austrian Grand Prix, Verstappen and Norris fought for victory. Their battle was hard and fair, but on lap 64 that changed. Both drivers collided and had to go back to the pits. There, only Verstappen was able to continue his race.
However, Norris's car was too severely damaged to continue the race. Eventually, Verstappen finished the race in fifth with the bonus point for fastest lap, while Norris saw his Austrian Grand Prix end in a DNF.
Angry Norris
After the race there was a lot of backlash against Verstappen. He was the one that drifted to the left and did not give Norris the space he needed, so lots of people online said.
Even Norris said that he did not understand Verstappen's actions in Austria, because the Dutchman has so many wins already and normally never races this hard for a race victory.
Verstappen responds to criticasters
Norris's words fueled some (mostly British) media outlets. Autosport even wrote an 'Abu Dhabi GP 2021-esque' letter to Verstappen in which they said that de Dutchman was reverting back to his old self. Asked about these kind of articles, Verstappen gave a very clear answer.
"Everyone can have their opinion. That’s fine. That’s not going to define how I live my life off track or how I behave on it. 80-85 percent of the press in F1 is English, so you have quite a dominant force with that. In the back of their minds, most would prefer their national driver to do well or in the case of an incident naturally pick the side of their countryman", Verstappen told Daily Mail.
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