McLaren’s Lando Norris has issued a public apology to Franco Colapinto just two days after calling for the Alpine driver to be banned by the FIA.
The incident that sparked the controversy occurred during Saturday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where a restart following a safety car ended in chaos for three drivers.
Colapinto outbraked himself into turn one on cold tyres, locking up and crashing into his Alpine team-mate Pierre Gasly in the process.
Gasly, with nowhere to go, then collected Norris, forcing all three cars to retire from the race in an incident that left the McLaren driver furious.
Colapinto was handed a 10-second penalty for causing the collision, but as it could not be served in Baku, it was converted into a five-place grid drop for this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix at the Sepang track in Malaysia.
In the immediate aftermath of the race, Norris made no effort to hide his anger, directing sharp criticism at both Colapinto and the FIA’s approach to policing dangerous driving.
Norris said: “The FIA should be more strict and start handing out bans for this kind of stuff.”
He went further, adding: “It’s careless from people. It costs a lot of money. All my parts are in the bin now, so people should just get banned for this kind of driving. (They) don’t deserve to be in Formula 1.”
Norris also stated: “If you cause a crash on a restart like this, yeah, you should have at least a one-race ban.”
However, two days on from those heated comments, Norris took to his Instagram stories to walk back his words and confirm he had reached out to Colapinto directly.
Norris said: “Tough weekend overall in Baku and of course a disappointing and early end to the race.”
He continued: “After the race, I sent Franco a message apologising for the comments I made that I simply should not have said.”
Norris acknowledged his own racing history as context for his change in tone, writing: “I know better and emotions were running high but that is not an excuse, it was wrong of me.”
He added: “I’ve made mistakes of my own over the years and I know this is very much a part of racing and fighting on the limit.”
Norris confirmed the two drivers had smoothed things over, writing: “Me and Franco came to a good understanding, are still good friends and are both excited to get back racing this weekend.”
The incident drew comparisons to the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix, where Romain Grosjean triggered a multi-car pile-up at turn one, squeezing Lewis Hamilton into the wall before collecting Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso, with Pastor Maldonado and Kamui Kobayashi also suffering damage.
Grosjean received a €50,000 fine and a one-race ban for that incident, missing the Italian Grand Prix at Monza as punishment from the FIA.
Meanwhile, Alpine team boss Flavio Briatore described Colapinto’s move in Baku as “a very poor move,” and what additional internal punishment the team may hand down to the 23-year-old Argentine remains to be seen.