Verstappen and Norris still friends? 'Then the friendship goes to sh*t'

20 November at 11:00

Ludo van Denderen

David Coulthard believes Max Verstappen and Lando Norris will be able to keep their friendship despite the 2024 World Championship fight, which saw a few heated moments between the two on track. Since the two drivers became rivals for the Formula 1 World Championship, some have suggested that there's a crack in their friendly relationship. David Coulthard, a former F1 driver and current pundit, suspects that is not true.

Planet F1 asked Coulthard about the challenge of maintaining a friendship when you're rivals in F1. There were several incidents between the two, such as in Austria, Mexico and the United States. "I think they’ve got a big enough base of what they enjoy doing away from the racetrack that they’ll be fine," Coulthard said.

Will the friendship between Verstappen and Norris dip in the future?

Coulthard cites that fans—including himself—actually like it when there is some noise off the track in addition to the on-track action. However, the history between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg has also shown that a friendship can break down when the stakes get too high, even though they were teammates at the time.

According to the Scot, that is a substantial difference. "So Lando doesn’t know what Max’s strategy is – they can surmise and guess but, when it’s your teammate and you know he’s stopping on Lap 19, and you’ve got to stop a lap later because he’s got the first call because he’s on pole, you know you’re already compromised," he continued.

So Coulthard believes friendship will be harder to maintain if they become teammates. "It’s a really, really complex thing, having two drivers on the same team when they both have a chance of winning. That’s when the friendship turns to sh*t," he concluded.

This article has been created in collaboration with Matt Gretton