The ruthless marker Norris laid down with his Verstappen squeeze at Barcelona

“I know his birthday present already – it's either like a big mirror or some glasses and it will be fine!”

Max Verstappen there, all jokes and smiles after winning Formula 1’s 2024 Spanish Grand Prix.

Perhaps the sight of his once great rival, Lewis Hamilton, flat on his back on the Barcelona press conference sofa as he waited for Verstappen and (especially) Lando Norris to finish speaking to TV crews downstairs had tickled the Red Bull driver.

PLUS: Does McLaren now have F1's fastest package?

Maybe he enjoyed Bob Marley’s 'Could You Be Loved', which Hamilton was playing from his phone. 

More likely, Verstappen was finally able to be gracious about Norris’s stiff defence off the line three hours earlier at Barcelona, since the race was won.

He certainly wasn’t overly happy behind the wheel just after the move that had Verstappen skipping his right-front wheel across the grass lining the pitwall – “I got pushed off on the grass” he needlessly reported to engineer Gianpiero Lambiase and the eavesdropping officials.

Norris had actually reacted better than Verstappen to the lights going out last Sunday. His car clearly moved first, but the second phase – which Norris called "the drive out" – wasn’t as good. Verstappen’s car actually squirmed with wheelspin too, but Red Bull’s mid-to-late 2023 efforts to improve its start systems made the difference.

Verstappen was in a gracious mood at the press conference, which began in relaxed mood with reclined Hamilton playing DJ

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Verstappen got his front wheels alongside Norris’s rears, all the while the McLaren was chopping right. It was fantastic viewing – tough, but just the right side of fair.

“It's always difficult to judge in that situation,” Norris replied when Autosport asked for his take on the move, plus our pondering of whether it was the first sign of more hard racing to come between the pair from now on.

“I can't get a tape measure out and measure it perfectly. I'm not going to make his life easy. There was enough space, I think…. What? I'm just going to stop talking…

“I think it was just racing. I gave him enough space. I don't think at any point there wasn't enough space for him to stay on the track… What? Do you want to answer it?”

"George would have led no matter what, even if my start was two metres better. In some ways, that's what happens in Barcelona"
Lando Norris

Norris was narked by more Verstappen and Hamilton jokes – off-mic this time. The 24-year-old is well known in the media for his effusive answers, good days or bad. With his more regular appearances in the FIA press conferences, these have been longer of late – apparently something his fellow professionals can’t abide…

But if we can’t have Norris’s thoughts on the prospect of full-blooded battles between two friends, two of the best drivers of their era, we’ll share our own instead. At the risk of having to pen another open letter in apology to Norris, we’ll start with the negative.

Because there’s an argument that had Norris been willing to chop across Verstappen’s bows even more brutally – perhaps from a position already pointing towards the Red Bull on the front row – he might’ve won the contest. That’s regardless of whatever George Russell and his Mercedes start rocket did on the run to Turn 1.

Verstappen, as much as he a tad disingenuously later joked about Norris’s move, would surely have done exactly that. But actually, as Norris said, “that's what happens in Barcelona”.

A little more aggression and Norris may have moved ahead of Verstappen, instead of both being usurped by Russell

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

The 0.36-mile-long run to Turn 1 is rather similar to the start of the other GP where Norris started on pole: Sochi 2021. There, another one of his friends, Carlos Sainz, jumped ahead to lead a race he had no right to.

Without Russell’s steely presence on the grippy outside line on Sunday, Norris reckoned he “still could have kept on to first around Turn 1”.

“But George had a run on both of us,” he added. “So, even if my start was one or two metres better, which I think was all I probably could have done, just the long run down to Turn 1, the slipstream from the Mercedes, on both Max and myself, was more than anything that I could have done.

“I almost think George would have led no matter what, even if my start was two metres better. In some ways, that's what happens in Barcelona. George got a good start and I couldn't do anything about that.

“I settled in. I had to take third in Turn 2 because if I braked two metres later, I think I would have taken everyone out with me. I made the correct decision of backing out and letting George have it.”

Norris had headed the grid after producing a scintillating qualifying lap. It corrected something of an underwhelming run following his stunning Miami win – where team-mate Oscar Piastri had beaten him in Imola and Monaco qualifying, while Russell emerged as Red Bull’s closest challenger in Montreal.

Norris told Autosport exclusively ahead of the Spanish weekend that, while he felt his 2024 season so far had been “very good”, he’d noted tiny elements going wrong in qualifying that had made big differences.

Norris: “Such as just still my general approach on how to drive this car quick.”

Autosport: “But you’ve been driving it pretty quick?!”

Norris: “I know, but… it can be driven quicker!”

For Norris, Russell was always going to get into Turn 1 ahead

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

Norris explained how he just wants “to attack more and simply it’s the wrong thing to do” for McLaren’s car package. How, using his subconscious ability of sensing where and how hard to brake – “I rarely, hardly ever use brake markers,” he claimed – he’d too often apply one or two bar of pressure harder to the pedal than was ideal. This led to extra tyre stress, grip and time elsewhere lost.

Norris set out to correct this in Spain and it paid off. He built up to taking Barcelona’s quickest turns flat, or as close to flat as the McLaren could manage (he was at 90% full throttle at the final corner on his last lap in Q3 having been at 76% on his previous personal best) and got all the laptime the MCL38 could deliver.

It was interesting to also hear how Norris feels Piastri “just seems happier to not push and can get more out of the car by not trying as hard, let’s say”.

"I think sometimes I try still a little bit too hard to gain that 0.2s when really there’s only 0.1s in the car"
Lando Norris

“I think sometimes I try still a little bit too hard to gain that 0.2s when really there’s only 0.1s in the car,” Norris added.

Piastri had led the intra-McLaren way in Monaco, where hooking up his personal best sectors from across qualifying showed how this was another event – along with the Montreal triumph lost in the safety car swing – McLaren should’ve won this term.

Now it and Norris head to venues where they have absolutely shone before. Think of Norris defeating the championship-challenging Hamilton at Austria in 2021 or tearing past Verstappen at Silverstone last year on his way to matching his then best F1 career result.

If these are to be parts two and three of ‘Norris vs Verstappen: no holds barred’, we've now seen the lengths Norris is willing to go to on the path to secure success beyond just podium finishes. He always said he would and now he's backed it up. Bravo.

Norris has now shown how aggressive he is willing to be to beat Verstappen

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images