Lando Norris admitted he made a fool out of himself following a “stupid” 200mph crash with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri at Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.
George Russell delivered a brilliant performance to win from pole position to claim his first F1 win of the season ahead of his Red Bull rival Max Verstappen. Italian teenager Kimi Antonelli finished third to land his first podium in Formula One.
But the 10th round of the championship in Montreal will be remembered for Norris’ friendly fire on Piastri, which deals a major blow to the British driver’s hopes of winning the world championship.
The papaya-on-papaya flashpoint arrived with three laps to go when Norris launched his McLaren underneath Piastri at the hairpin as they duelled for fourth.
Piastri was able to slingshot his McLaren back alongside Norris as they attacked the concluding right-left chicane.
Piastri had the benefit of holding the inside line under braking to move back ahead of Norris. However, the British driver enjoyed a better exit onto the start-finish straight and sensed an opportunity to squeeze past Piastri.
But Norris misjudged the move and crashed into the back of his team-mate’s car. Norris screeched to a halt with damage.
“Are you alright, dude,” said Norris’ engineer Will Joseph on the radio. “Yes, I am sorry,” replied Norris. “It’s all my bad. All my fault. Unlucky. Sorry. Stupid from me.”
Piastri was able to continue and finished fourth – the race ending behind the safety car following the McLaren collision – to extend his championship lead from 10 points to 22.
“Rule number one is not to make contact with your team-mate, and that’s what I did,” said Norris.
“McLaren is my family and I race for them every single weekend and try and do well for them on and off the track. So when I let them down like this and make a fool of myself like I did today, I have a lot of regret. I’m not proud of myself, I feel bad, so apologies to all of them.
“Of course, he (Oscar) is not going to be happy with what happened. I wouldn’t be either if it was the other way around so I owe him an apology for such a risk.
“He raced me fairly until that point. So, you know, Oscar did nothing wrong here, just myself.
“I’ve let down the team, and that’s going to stay with me for a little while. We will go back to the factory, and I am sure that’s not going to be a nice moment for me because of what happened today.”
McLaren have long been prepared for a collision between their two drivers and Norris’ swift move to accept blame was welcomed by Piastri. It will also go some way to diffuse any tension within the British team.
“Lando has apologised to me and that says a little bit,” said Piastri. “Lando is a very good guy and it is in his character and personality to say what he thinks, even if that is detrimental to himself.
“It is good for the team going forward that we can have these conversations and race like this and have things not go the way we want and get through them.
“If we were too aggressive going through a corner and we clearly got it wrong than that is one thing, but it was an unfortunate incident on a straight and it will not change anything and that is how it should be because we are both fighting for the world championship.”
