Max Verstappen has insisted that he and Lando Norris ‘will talk’ after their crash at the Austrian Grand Prix. The pair have, until now, been close friends, but the McLaren driver has insisted that this will be over without an apology from his rival.

The Red Bull and McLaren duo were scrapping for the lead lap after lap following what turned out to be the penultimate round of pit stops, and on lap 64, disaster struck when they made contact at Turn Three.

Most attributed the blame to Verstappen, who wandered over to the left-hand side of the track under braking while Norris was launching a move around the outside, forcing contact between their cars and giving both drivers punctures.

“I don’t know, it depends what he says,” Norris told Sky Sports F1 when asked about the future of their friendship. “If he says he did nothing wrong, then I’ll lose a lot of respect for that.

“If he admits to being a bit stupid and running into me and being a bit reckless in a way, then I’ll lose a small amount of respect for him, but it’s still a tough one to take when you’re fighting for the win. I’m trying to be fair from my side and he just wasn’t. I don’t know, that’s all I’m thinking about. I don’t care now, I’m just gutted for the team.”

Asked about his rival’s comments, Verstappen hit back: “I need to look back at how or why we touched and of course, we’ll talk about it. It’s just unfortunate that it happened.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella was much more clear in his assessment of the clash. “The entire population of the world would know who is responsible, except for a group of people.

“But the problem behind it is that if you don’t address these things honestly, they will come back. They have come back today because they were not addressed properly in the past where there were fights with Lewis that needed to be punished in a harsher way.”

He then suggested that the incident ‘compromises their reputation’, insisting that the reigning champions ‘don’t need to do this’ in their fight with Norris and McLaren.