Verstappen watched footage with Norris: 'I agree 99 per cent'

Norris revealed after the Austrian Grand Prix that he demanded an apology from Verstappen. Otherwise, he would "lose respect" for the Dutchman. Norris came back to that a few days later. The current world championship number two stated that he had reacted out of emotion and that he no longer expects apologies from the Red Bull Racing driver.

So from Norris' side, all signs seem to be on green to remain friends and vice versa is the same. Verstappen explained that he looked at the footage with Norris. "I just said that we have to just let things cool off a bit. We'll look at the footage and that's what I did with Lando. That's the only one that I care about because whatever anyone else said, that's not for me. Everyone can have an opinion but I only look at the relationship of things and my relationship with Lando in that case."

Verstappen disagrees with penalty

Verstappen received a 10-second time penalty for his part in the crash. Not all drivers in Formula 1 think that penalty is justified. Will it come up in the drivers' briefing? "I don't know. Many people don't want to be in the drivers meeting for too long. Most of time, you think it’s going to be a long meeting then most of the time it's not."

The Dutchman doesn't necessarily feel the need to make a big thing of it. "No, I don't need to bring it up because even if you get a penalty for these kind of things, there have been way worse things happening under braking or leaving space to another car in the past. Naturally, I don't agree with the 10-second penalty but again for me the only thing that was very important coming out of the weekend was my relationship with Lando."

After watching the footage, Verstappen and Norris agreed up to 99% on what happened in Austria. "We agree with 99% of everything so that’s a lot already. "I always said to Lando, when you go for moves up the inside, the outside, you can trust me that I'm not there to try and crash you out of the way," said Verstappen. "Same the other way around because we spoke about that as well because naturally there's always a human reaction when someone dives on the inside or outside that you have a bit of a reaction to it, but I felt everything that I did was nothing massively over the top."

Verstappen on criticism

Verstappen draws the comparison with designing an F1 car. "You try to push the edge of the rules and maybe find a grey area here and there. That is the same as how you race, because otherwise you will never become a top driver or be successful in life," said the World Championship leader, who also responded briefly to the criticism he received after the crash. "I don’t give a shit about that. I go home, live my life. The only thing I cared about was my relationship with Lando."

Verstappen dropped to fifth place after crash, scoring 10 points for the world championship. In doing so, he did good business, as his nearest rival Norris scored no points and remained on 156 points. The difference between the two drivers is now 81 points.