Sep.27 (GMM) Lando Norris launched an extraordinary attack on Franco Colapinto after the Argentine triggered a multi-car incident at the Baku restart, saying drivers responsible for such crashes should be banned.
Colapinto locked up into turn 1 and collected several cars, including teammate Pierre Gasly and world champion Norris, while championship leader Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes was also damaged.
“I just got taken out… just some drivers that shouldn’t be in F1, to be honest,” Norris said.
“In Formula 1, we want to compete against the best drivers in the world. When something like this happens, it’s simply because they have no business being there.”
He went even further: “Give him a ban. It’s quite simple.”
“I think the FIA should be more strict and start handing out bans for this kind of stuff. It’s just careless from people.”
“It costs a lot of money, all my parts are in the bin now. People should just get banned, because that’s not driving that deserves to be in Formula 1.”
Colapinto apologised immediately.
“Just a big sorry to all of them, to the factory, to Pierre of course. I did a big mistake. A big sorry, it shouldn’t happen,” the contrite Argentine said.
The stewards handed Colapinto a five-place grid penalty for Malaysia, but the top three finishers all rejected Norris’ call for a race ban.
Winner George Russell said: “I think that’s too harsh, personally.”
“I think Safety Car restarts, cold tyres, a very small mistake can have big consequences.”
“Race bans should come from drivers intentionally doing something very dangerous and very reckless.”
Max Verstappen agreed.
“A race ban probably is a bit much,” the Red Bull driver said.
“As long, of course, the driver that caused it is aware of what he did, right, and apologised.”
Isack Hadjar was even more sympathetic. “I think the track is not good enough,” said the Frenchman, who returned from his three-race absence with a podium on Saturday.
“You move out of the racing line, it starts to be very bumpy. So then, yeah, you just overdo it and then it has big, big consequences.”
“A race ban is way too harsh.”
Flavio Briatore nevertheless suggested Alpine may consider additional action internally.
“I want to take some time to reflect on this and assess what steps we should take so that we can learn from what happened and prevent such a situation from happening again,” said the team advisor.
La Gazzetta dello Sport meanwhile reports that the fallout has now moved online, with Norris targeted by Colapinto supporters.
The newspaper described “homophobic insults and threats” appearing on Norris’ social media accounts, only days after Gasly himself was subjected to abuse from Argentine fans following the Madrid controversy.