Max Verstappen has joked that he has plans to send Lando Norris a present after this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix. Verstappen laughed that he might send his damaged winners’ trophy to the McLaren star after Norris inadvertently destroyed it at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Verstappen made the admission when asked by Ted Kravitz what would happen to the destroyed cup. The Sky Sports F1 expert asked whether Christian Horner planned to display the broken vase in the trophy cabinet back at the team’s Milton Keynes base.
Verstappen replied: “I haven’t spoken about that, I mean we are getting a new one. They are making a new one. So I honestly don’t know what’s happening to the broken one. Maybe I can send it to Lando.”
Kravitz added: “Yeah, see if he will pay for it.” Norris destroyed the porcelain trophy as the drivers celebrated on the podium at Budapest.
The 23-year-old smashed his champagne bottle on the top step of the podium which knocked the vase over. The porcelain piece smashed into two bits with Verstappen snapped by photographers carrying away the separate sections.
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The trophy was handmade especially for the race by Hungarian company Herendi Porcelanmanufaktura. It is understood the vase takes around six months to make at a cost of around £34,000.
Herendi’s CEO Attila Simon has already confirmed Verstappen’s trophy would be replaced as part of a life guarantee. He told Hungarian TV channel M4 Sport: “The teams should work out who is to blame among themselves, but we take on the joyous and heavy burden of making it again.”
After the race, Norris was pushed on the incident by Sky F1 junior reporter Scarlett where the McLaren driver jokingly claimed he “didn’t care” about the damage. He even blamed Verstappen for the incident and joked that the Dutchman had “put his trophy in the wrong place”.
But Norris appeared to U-turn on his comments at Spa-Francorchamps as he issued a heartfelt apology to Red Bull and the designers. He explained: “I mean first of all I do want to apologise for it. I had no intention of ever doing such a thing and I know how much it means to the Hungarians and their culture.
“It was never my intention to do such a thing and I did apologise to Max. I know I obviously made a couple of jokes about it which maybe I shouldn’t. If he did it to my trophy I’d be annoyed so I do apologise for it and obviously the people who put the time and effort in to make it. I really didn’t mean for it to happen so I’ll make sure I’m a lot more careful next time.”