McLaren F1 star Lando Norris interrupted Oscar Piastri’s post-race interview in the media pen to apologise to the Australian, after the two team-mates collided at the end of the Canadian Grand Prix.
While battling for fourth position, Norris tried to make a move on the start-finish straight on his championship rival, but there was not enough room to make such a manoeuvre, and the Brit crashed into the wall having gently touched Piastri’s car.
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The move took Norris out of the race, while Piastri was able to go on to finish in fourth, allowing him to extend his championship lead over Norris to 22 points.
After the incident, Norris took full responsibility for the crash, calling himself ‘stupid’ and a ‘fool’ for attempting the overtake on his team-mate at such an unforgiving part of the track.
However, the pair’s harmonious relationship despite being in a championship battle was seemingly unharmed by the incident, with neither Piastri nor Norris giving particularly fiery interviews post-race.
In fact, during Piastri’s post-race interview, Norris interrupted the Australian in order to come over and apologise to his team-mate.
“Sorry,” Norris audibly said, before Piastri replied: “Nah, it’s fine,” and the pair continued talking away from the microphones briefly.
Normally after a crash between two team-mates – particularly for a team fighting for the constructors’ championship – there would be some stern discussions between the drivers and their bosses over their actions.
Although those discussions may go on in the days after the Canadian GP, it doesn’t seem as though the incident has done anything to harm the relationship between the two drivers, and Norris’ decision to take full responsibility immediately will likely have taken pressure off the team.
There will be no need for Andrea Stella and Zak Brown to read Norris the riot act, he admitted he was in the wrong, and will know it has harmed his championship chances more than Piastri’s or the team’s ambitions.
It will, no doubt, be interesting to see if there is a change to the team’s strategy the next time one of their drivers is chasing the other down near the end of the race, however.
The pair have always been free to race each other, and Norris’ engineer Will Joseph even encouraged his driver to make a move on Piastri whilst the Brit could benefit from DRS just before his regrettable race-ending move.
