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Max Verstappen and Lando Norris had a peculiar incident in the dying stage of the final qualifying segment for the Singapore GP. The Dutchman was unhappy with his friend for possibly ruining his final qualifying run in Q3, but Norris jibed back at the Red Bull driver's camp with some fans over social media siding with the Briton for taking a stance against Verstappen's comments.
Norris had qualified P5 for the Singapore GP and was on his in-lap when Verstappen caught him up. Before the Red Bull driver had caught up to the 25-year-old, he had set multiple personal best mini-sectors, but his lap derailed as soon as he caught up to Norris.
This left the reigning champion furious and claimed in the post-race interview that he would remember the incident. However, the McLaren driver was unfazed by Verstappen's comments as he said:
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"They always complain. They complain about everything. That's Red Bull."
Moreover, fans then shared their take on the situation and wrote on X:
"He’s right. Verstappen always has an excuse."
"Lando cooking Max, you don't see that very often. The Max fans lashing out because they're unfamiliar with it is pretty funny too," one fan wrote.
"Lando cooked that crybaby," another fan wrote.
On the other hand, another chunk of fans was in Verstappen's camp as they wrote:
"Look who's talking about complaining....," one netizen wrote.
"Lot of talk from guy starting P5, Lmao he get Max out of his head," another netizen wrote.
"This guy literally complains whenever someone races him. He tries so hard to be hated," a third netizen shared.
Max Verstappen has had a few incidents with Lando Norris over the past year, where the two friends have had close interactions with each other on track.
Max Verstappen asserts that his incident with Lando Norris "could have been avoided"
While the 2024 season posed a different challenge, Lando Norris and Max Verstappen have not crossed each other's paths at the same frequency this year. But Norris' actions during the qualifying at the Marina Bay Circuit have seemingly been perceived as impeding in the Dutchman's eyes.
So, reflecting on the altercation he had with the McLaren driver, Verstappen said in the post-qualifying press conference:
"I think in general, we're always quite good at that, all the drivers who try to stay out of the way... So every scenario is a bit different, but in this case, in Q3 with only 10 cars on the track, I think it could have been avoided."
Max Verstappen sits 44 points adrift from Lando Norris in the drivers' championship table and has a great opportunity to bag a haul of points over the Brit on raceday as he starts three positions higher than his rival.
