Lando Norris was not pushed off at Turn 2 at the Miami Grand Prix by Max Verstappen, but Anthony Davidson says he understands why the Briton felt his rival’s antics were a “bit dirty”.

Verstappen and Norris lined up first and second at the Miami Autodrome on Sunday after the Red Bull driver took pole position by 0.065s.

Max Verstappen and Lando Norris clashed in Miami

It was always going to be a hard fight, and that’s exactly how it played out as Verstappen covered Norris’ attack off the line then took the tighter angle into Turn 1, which meant he went wide at the exit but had the inside line for Turn 2.

That’s where Verstappen and Norris came within millimetres of crashing, with the McLaren driver complaining that Verstappen “pushed me off”.

Verstappen held onto the lead while Norris tumbled down to sixth place.

The stewards had a look at the incident and ruled that “no further investigation” was required.

But while Davidson can see why Norris felt it was a “bit dirty” from Verstappen, he believes it was a racing incident as Verstappen had a snap of oversteer.

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In fact, he reckons Norris would’ve been best served had he bided his time against the four-time World Champion.

“It’s easy for us to stand here now and say, ‘Oh, Lando should have just given it way more time, given it a breather in Turn One and Turn Two, sat behind Max and then eventually overtook’,” the former F1 driver said as his reviewed the lap 1 incident for Sky F1.

“But you don’t know that at the time, especially when you’ve got to beat your competitors behind you and you’re sitting on the grid, you get going, it’s not the start you would have wanted, Max gets a better start and chops him off straight away, as you would always expect.

“But then Lando plays this part really well. He’s able to brake in the right way, not locking up as Max goes slightly onwards from his early entry, and he can see Verstappen struggling there, and crosses over the line beautifully well to give himself a nice, clean exit and gets it straight so he’s got momentum on his side.

“When you’re in this position, like saying the move is on, you can see clear track in front of you, you’ve done a great job through Turn One. So the move is definitely on.

“If I play it up towards Turn Two, and you start to turn and you think ‘this is great, he’s given me space, I’m slightly ahead, I’ve got nose ahead’.

“But you see Lando steering doesn’t move. He’s committed to that trajectory in the corner. And it’s Max’s car, actually, that starts coming towards you. Think, ‘here we go. Look at that. The play on. Here we go. He’s squeezing me out’.

“It’s easy to think at this stage that it’s Verstappen playing things a bit dirty and pushing someone off the track. And that’s exactly how it looked, the way I saw it.”

“We don’t have unfortunately Max’s onboard, we can’t see what he’s doing with his steering. But watch Max’s car, there’s a wobble. The rear of the car just moving out and he has to collect a slide. It’s subtle, but that slight slide he gives means he’s now offline. So it’s not him driving towards Lando.

“He’s in desperation to get to the apex of Turn Two with cold tyres, and unfortunately for both of them, more so for Lando, his car snapping puts him offline, and that’s the reason they’re basically just racing to the same piece of tarmac.

“And yes, he does push him off the track, but I’d like to believe it wasn’t intentional, because he’s got a snap of oversteer on the entry with those cold tyres. So that explains that first moment of the race.”

But that was their first of two battles.

Norris and Verstappen tangled for a second time when Oscar Piastri took the lead off of Verstappen on lap 14 and Norris tried to launch a follow-up attack on the Red Bull driver. It didn’t go to plan.

Norris looked to make it a case of deja vu for Verstappen into Turn 1, but Verstappen was wise to that and covered the line. A few laps later, both Verstappen and Norris were off at T11, Norris returning ahead and letting Verstappen back through at Turn 17, as the battle raged on. The following lap, he got it down at Turn 11 to run second behind Piastri.

“Then we get into the defensive driving,” said Davidson. “As we know, Max is so robust in that area. And first of all, we’ve got Piastri on the attack down Turn 11. Max has got it covered off really well, and just politely gets in front, pushes his rival wide.

“But then this is Piastri on the outside, eventually forcing the Red Bull driver to lock up his tyres – the smoke there, the telltale sign he’s not stopping in an efficient way as you can on the outside.

“And it’s a bit of judgment, obviously, from Oscar, a little bit of luck as well, involves that your opponent has outbreak themselves, and some people may see that, rightly so, as better racecraft, perhaps, than Lando in this situation. But you’ve caught your opponent unaware, and he’s definitely had that lock up, because you’re pushing him into that situation.

“But as Max said afterwards on the radio, these brakes, didn’t have a good feeling with it, and he’s outbreak himself. Probably did break too late. It’s the first time he sat to do that move in the race. So that was Oscar getting through.

“And it’s a little bit different when it was Lando’s turn to come up to the same driver in the same corner. Now, Max is obviously aware of where he can break on the inside into the corner. So this naturally made it harder for Norris to get by in the same manner. I still feel like it wasn’t executed quite as well as what Oscar did, but he was certainly up against the toughest situation in this moment.

“Down into Turn 11, he finally gets the move on, but he’s off the track and rejoins ahead. So he does the right thing there in letting, as painful as it is, letting Verstappen pass as you’re only going to get a penalty. “In the end he does get the move done into Turn 11, stays on the track and finally gets ahead.”

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