Martin Brundle sends Lando Norris’ ruthless message to stop Max Verstappen

Martin Brundle has told Lando Norris that he must stop “rolling out the welcome mat” for Max Verstappen after the United States Grand Prix.

While there have been many opinions about their latest battle, Brundle returned to the start of the race, where pole-sitter Norris allowed Verstappen to come in on the inside.

Martin Brundle tells Lando Norris to be more ruthless after US GP crash

The nature of the first corner at Circuit of the Americas means that whoever is in the lead has the propensity to slam the door on their opponent.

However, Norris did not take that option and, by reaching the corner first, left enough space for Verstappen to enter.

The result was that Verstappen and Norris tangled, while Charles Leclerc was able to take the lead and ultimately win the race.

After Norris lost further ground in the title race, Brundle told him he must be more ruthless if he wants to beat Verstappen.

“Lando must stop welcoming inside, because Max Verstappen doesn’t need a second invitation,” Brundle said on Sky F1. “You don’t need a first invitation to go up inside if you’re going to leave the width of a car.

“He’s a street fighter. He runs hard. “He plays by the rules, he plays them hard and he gets them right and sometimes he pushes the limit.”

Regarding the subsequent incident in which Norris received a five-second penalty, Brundle believes Verstappen was the one ahead in that situation and should have left more space.

“The track is the fundamental issue. “It is too easy to go too far,” said the veteran expert.

“In my opinion, Norris substantially outperformed Verstappen, so it was Verstappen who became the lead in that corner and should have given Norris more space on the outside.

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“It’s a piece of cake. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Lando should have given him that spot back and McLaren should have asked him to give that spot back immediately.

“The regulations just don’t work. There are two benchmarks that are fundamentally based on these guidelines.

“One is the position relative to another person’s mirror. You can barely see your own mirror in those things, let alone someone else’s.

“But there is also a hard reference point: an imaginary vertex. Now, where is the vertex? Turn 1 at Austin is a very good example. In reality, the apex is about three-quarters of the way around the corner.

“So you can’t have a set of guidelines that are based on an imaginary point, especially since the cars aren’t necessarily indoors.”

Read below: Support from FIA stewards comes after US GP controversy