MONTREAL :Lando Norris apologised to McLaren and his championship-leading teammate Oscar Piastri on Sunday for a Canadian Grand Prix collision he said broke the first rule of racing.
The Briton hit the back of Piastri’s car as he tried to overtake three laps from the end, a misjudgement that put Norris out of the race and damaged the Australian’s car, albeit without consequence for him.
Piastri finished fourth and extended his Formula One lead over Norris to 22 points.
“Rule number one is to not make a contact with your teammate, and that’s what I did,” Norris told reporters at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
“McLaren is my family… 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 and I’ve let down the team.
“He (Piastri) is not going to be happy altogether 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… Oscar did nothing wrong here, just myself.”
Piastri said Norris had apologised, he appreciated the gesture and there was no bad feeling between them.
“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,” added the Australian.
“This is a great quality for Lando. 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.”
Team boss Andrea Stella said it had been an accident waiting to happen and one the team had expected to deal with at some point.
“We said a few times that it wasn’t a matter of if, it was more a matter of when,” said the Italian. “And the ‘when’ is Canada 2025.”
Stella said it had been the result of a simple misjudgement, a miscalculation, and a part of racing even if the team never wanted to see their cars collide.
He praised Norris for taking responsibility and apologising to him and to the team and while there would be further conversations, he could count on McLaren’s full support.
“It’s important the way we respond and we react to these situations,” he added. “This will only make us stronger in terms of our internal competition and in terms of the way we go racing.
“We act based on principles and based on principles there should be no contact between two McLarens… luckily there was no double penalty with the points lost for the other car, which had no responsibility in this contact.”
