McLaren has been complaining a lot lately – Verstappen

Max Verstappen says he has no understanding of McLaren’s arguments over Lando Norris’ penalty at the US Grand Prix, despite there being several complaints this season.

Norris received a 5-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage by overtaking Verstappen on the outside at Turn 12, although the Red Bull driver also went off the track in the incident. With McLaren also being vocal about Red Bull’s car design this weekend after the FIA ​​asked to remove a device that can change ride heights, Verstappen rejected the Norris penalty.

“No, I don’t,” said Verstappen. “I mean, they’ve been complaining a lot lately anyway, but that’s clearly in the rules. It is not possible to pass outside the white line. I’ve paid for this in the past too.

“I think it is very clear: you are not allowed to overtake outside the white line. I mean, I did it here too, I think, in 2017 or whatever. I lost my podium like that. I just stayed calm and then tried to do my best to get the car to the finish because it wasn’t easy with the tires and the situation I was in. But overall I still really enjoyed the fight we had. ”

Verstappen overtook Norris at the start of Turn 1 with an inside move that also saw both drivers go wide, but he says losing a position to race winner Charles Leclerc didn’t hurt his final race result too much.

“There was a gap inside, so I decided to go for it. This corner is very wide, giving you lots of options to go very wide or try to go very narrow. I chose this option and still came in second! Started second and came out of turn 1 second.

“This time it was of course Charles in front. I think it worked out pretty well for me because Charles was faster and just pulled away. From then on I just tried to run my own race.

“I just tried to do my best, to be honest. My balance wasn’t good. I just wasn’t really… I wasn’t able to attack the corners. I put a lot of pressure on it, but here it’s pretty cool to defend the track. There are many options. It makes it good for racing.”

Despite not having the pace to challenge for victory as Ferrari secured a one-two finish, Verstappen leaves Austin having extended his championship lead over Norris to 57 points.

“That’s definitely the positive,” he said. “I was hoping for a bit more performance today, so we have to analyze why we just weren’t that good today. I think everyone was doing a little better or at least as good as yesterday, and it felt like we were definitely worse. I need to understand why that was the case because right now I don’t know.”