Lando Norris has issued a scathing criticism of Franco Colapinto, saying the Alpine driver does not deserve to be in Formula One and should face a race-ban after taking Norris’s McLaren out of the race.
The race was won by Mercedes’ George Russell but Norris was forced to retire from eighth place after Colapinto caused the accident that that all but ended the defending world champion’s title hopes.
Colapinto came in toward turn one from a safety car restart far too hot and locked-up long before the corner entry. Unable to control the car, he speared into his teammate Pierre Gasly, who in turn shunted the British driver. With all three cars out of the race, Norris was left fuming.
“I just got taken out. There are some drivers who shouldn’t be in Formula One,” he said.
Norris is now 116 points off the championship leader Kimi Antonelli with eight meetings remaining but while mathematically still in the hunt the title is surely gone.
McLaren had brought a swathe of new parts to the race in Baku and having sustained considerable damage, there was no guarantee they could be replaced in time for the Bahrain GP in Malaysia next weekend. That left Norris insistent Colapinto should face serious sanction.
“If you cause a crash on a restart like this, you should have at least a one-race ban,” he said. “The FIA should be stricter by starting to hand out bans for this kind of stuff. It is just careless. It costs a lot of money, all my parts are in the bin now. It is not driving that deserves to be in Formula One.
“In Formula One you would expect that drivers can anticipate that the grip will be low and tyre temperatures are low. You want to be against the best drivers and when stuff like this happens it is because they shouldn’t be there.”
Colapinto apologised for causing the incident. “I can be sorry to everyone. It’s been a big mistake of course. I just locked-up and then I was very out of control,” he said.
The error was hugely costly to his Alpine team as well who were on for a very strong double points finish at the time and Gasly was similarly aggrieved at his teammate. “I don’t think I really have words and I don’t need the words now,” he said.
The stewards gave Colapinto a 10-second penalty in the race but since he could not serve it having already retired, he will instead receive a grid drop at the next round.
