As the rain-shortened race in Japan concluded, F1 has seen the rise of a new two-time world champion. With four more races to go, Max Verstappen couldn’t wait to get his hands on the F1 title. With everyone congratulating the Dutchman, Lando Norris didn’t feel different.

As the race winded up, Verstappen approached the media to give his reaction after winning his second world championship. This was when Norris came from behind with his hoodie on ‘like an assassin’ to surprise Verstappen, shake hands and give him a hug to show the change in feelings.

This comes after Saturday’s close call between the two drivers during qualifying that led them to even blame each other.

The gesture, however, was liked by the media persons present there as an interviewer from ViaPlay said, “They’re friends again, huh?”

To this, Verstappen replied, “We’re always friends” while Norris cheekily put in, “We fell out yesterday. I hated Max yesterday.” And they both laughed.

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With the Japan race win, the Dutchman picked up his 12th season win in 2022 and 32nd all-time career win. On top of that, the 25-year-old has picked up 74 podiums, 18 poles, and 21 fastest laps till now.

FIA summoned Max Verstappen over the Lando Norris incident

Max Verstappen and Lando Norris almost had a close shunt on Saturday. As the Q3 almost got over, Verstappen and Norris came real close to a high-speed collision. Thanks to the McLaren driver’s supreme reflexes, a major accident was avoided.

FIA took note of the incident, and later released a statement that said, “The driver of car 1 was aware of car 55 in front and car 4 approaching from behind and decided to accelerate at precisely the same time as car 4 decided to overtake car 1. Unfortunately, due to lack of tire temperature on car 1, the driver temporarily lost control of the car causing it to ‘snap’ anti-clockwise.”

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“The driver of car 4 stated that this was simply an unfortunate incident  however it is the driver’s responsibility to at all times maintain control of their car. Regarding penalty, all previous breaches of this nature have resulted in a Reprimand hence a similar penalty is imposed in this case,” the report concluded.

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As the Red Bull ace got away with a reprimand, he got to keep his P1 starting position for Sunday’s race. Eventually, Verstappen won the Japanese Grand Prix race and took his name to the elite category of two-time world champions.