McLaren boss BLAMES Hamilton incidents for Verstappen-Norris accident

McLaren boss Andrea Stella has placed the blame on the handling of previous incidents involving Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton for the reason why the former took Lando Norris out of the Austrian Grand Prix.

For ten laps, the two title protagonists fought it out on the main stage for victory in the Styrian countryside.

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In what had been a back-and-forth battle for P1, the duel reached its climax on Lap 64, with both cars coming together as Norris attacked the outside of his championship rival in a bid to pull off a stunning overtake.

Their cars touched, causing punctures for both, effectively ruling out their chances of clinching a precious victory.

Verstappen was able to continue after a quick pit stop to finish P5, but Norris was forced to retire, thus falling further behind his Red Bull counterpart in the race for the title.

'Punishment needs to be proportionate'

Mercedes star George Russell was the lucky beneficiary of the incident, stealing in to take his second career victory ahead of Norris' McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, and Carlos Sainz.

Verstappen was hit with a hefty penalty post-race, after being deemed to have been responsible for the incident.

The Dutchman received a 10-place grid penalty to be enforced in the next race, and also collected two penalty points for his troubles.

Speaking to Sky Sports after exiting the McLaren pit wall, team boss Stella brought up a similar incident which occurred in Sao Paulo 2021, when Verstappen did not come under investigation after making contact with Hamilton in a similar fashion.

“I see it that the entire population in the world would know who is responsible except for a group of people, but the problem behind it, is that if you don’t address these things honestly, they would come back," said the Italian.

"They have come back today because they were not addressed properly in the past, when there was 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.

“The fact is that we have so much respect for Red Bull, so much respect for Max.

"They don’t need to do this - it’s a way to almost compromise your reputation. Why would you do that?”

“I think the stewards found that Max was fully to blame in this episode, 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 trace as a consequence of this accident, the punishment needs to be proportionate to the outcome.”

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