Lando Norris should’ve stood up for himself instead of falling back in line with Max Verstappen after his clash with the Red Bull driver at last year’s Austrian Grand Prix, says Anthony Davidson.

Although F1 2024 initially looked set to be another Max Verstappen romp as he won seven of the opening 10 Grands Prix, McLaren gained a march in the development war and surged ahead of Red Bull on the track.

Lando Norris clashed with Max Verstappen at the Austrian GP

That not only saw the team launch an attack on the Constructors’ Championship but also the Drivers’ with Norris breathing down Verstappen’s neck.

Austria yielded their first of several big contests when Norris closed up on the Dutchman in the final stint and made several attempts to take the lead at Turn 3 in a no-holds-barred battle.

Verstappen was able to successfully defend before it came to a head with eight laps to go when Norris tried to pass around the outside of Turn 3 only for Verstappen to close the door. The two made contact with both cars suffering punctures. Norris retired from the race while Verstappen brought his car home in fifth despite a 10-second penalty for causing the collision.

Norris blasted Verstappen as “reckless” and “a little bit desperate”.

He added: “Doesn’t need to be, he’s got plenty of wins. But a bit desperate to do what he could to not let me pass and I know it’s going to be aggressive. So like I’m in a way not surprised, but I just expected a tough, fair, respectful on the edge bit of racing and I don’t feel like that’s what I got him into.”

Four days later, he did a U-Turn. “He doesn’t need to ­apologise and I don’t expect an apology,” said the McLaren driver. “It was good racing, at times close to the edge, but we have spoken about it and we are happy to go racing again.”

Former F1 driver turned Sky F1 pundit Davidson was disappointed as he wanted to see Norris stand up for himself.

“It’s what we didn’t want to hear basically from Lando after Austria wasn’t it?” Davidson said.

“And it felt like he kind of got back in line with what Max had been saying to him. And then, ‘oh, actually, you know, yeah, thinking about it, yeah, it was more my fault. And you’re right, yeah, I’ll race a bit cleaner next time’.

“But it’s like, no, we wanted to see him stick up for himself, because he was quite hard straight away. Straight after that race, he was quite hard in his comments, saying how, ‘you know, I lost respect, blah, blah’.”

One driver who did stand up to Verstappen in 2024 was George Russell, who also got into a verbal spat with the 27-year-old but unlike Norris, he didn’t change his tune.

Russell and Verstappen clashed during a stewards’ hearing after qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix with the Dutchman walking away with a one-place grid penalty for what he saw as Russell pushing for him to be penalised for driving slowly on a cooldown lap.

“I’ve been in that meeting room many times in my life, in my career, with people that I’ve raced and I’ve never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard. And that for me… I lost all respect,” said Verstappen.

As the spat continued, Russell told the media including PlanetF1.com that Verstappen’s words were “totally unnecessary. He’s crossed a line and I’m not going to accept it, so somebody has to stand up to someone who thinks he’s above the law.”

The season ended with Russell refusing to sit next to the reigning World Champion during the drivers’ end-of-season dinner. They have since spoken with Verstappen confident everything will be “fine” next year.

For Nico Rosberg, Russell standing up to Verstappen and refusing to back down bodes well for the future.

“This is now George really trying to step up to Max and fight him. Use the media, interesting, interesting to watch,” said the 2016 F1 World Champion.

“And I think it’s great, no really, because we haven’t seen any other drivers stand up to Max in that way so far. I mean, except Lewis [Hamilton] maybe perhaps. So it’s good.

“And different to like Lando who generally comes out and starts praising Max after a couple of days. So here is George being much more forceful, which is good to see.”