Lando Norris apologises to Franco Colapinto for Azerbaijan GP ban comments

Lando Norris has apologised to Franco Colapinto for saying the Alpine driver should be banned after a collision ended both their Azerbaijan Grand Prix races. Norris said he sent Colapinto a message after the race and that his remarks were wrong. The apology follows a crash that also eliminated Colapinto’s team-mate Pierre Gasly; race stewards imposed a grid penalty on Colapinto, rather than the ban Norris had urged.

BBC Sport reported Norris’s apology on 28 September, quoting a statement he posted on Instagram. Norris said his comments were something he ‘simply should not have said’. He added that emotions had been running high, but said that was no excuse. According to Norris, he and Colapinto had reached a good understanding, remained friends and were looking forward to racing again.

What Norris said after the crash

Immediately after Saturday’s race, Norris had told BBC Radio 5 Live: ‘Give him a ban. It’s quite simple.’ Sky Sports separately reported that he called for at least a one-race ban for a driver who caused a crash at a restart. In that account, Norris said he had not seen the incident when he made the call. Those statements were the comments he later apologised for, according to the BBC’s report of his message.

Norris’s immediate reaction went beyond the proposed sanction. Sky Sports reported that he said some drivers ‘shouldn’t be in Formula 1’ and described Colapinto’s driving as careless. He said the collision had left his McLaren damaged and his race over. His later message, as reported by the BBC, acknowledged that he too had made mistakes while racing at the limit.

How three cars were eliminated

Colapinto accepted responsibility for the error in comments reported by Formula 1. He apologised to Gasly, Alpine and the team’s factory staff, calling it a ‘big mistake’. He said he had locked up and was ‘completely out of control’. His account described his own braking error; it did not address Norris’s later apology, and BBC Sport’s report did not include a separate response from Colapinto to Norris’s message.

Gasly said he was disappointed because both Alpine cars had been in positions to score points. Speaking to Formula 1 after the race, he said the team would manage the incident together and move on. The lost opportunity mattered beyond the three retirements: Formula 1 reported that Alpine had been nine points behind Racing Bulls in the teams’ standings before the race, but finished six points further adrift after Racing Bulls driver Arvid Lindblad took seventh.

The penalty and what follows

The stewards’ sanction was distinct from the race ban Norris had requested. Sky Sports reported that Colapinto received a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision. Because he had already retired and could not serve it in the race, the penalty was converted into a five-place grid drop for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Sky also reported that no additional penalty points were applied to his super licence for the incident; it said he had four points at the time.

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix continued after the crash. The FIA’s race report lists Norris among six drivers who failed to finish and records George Russell’s victory, with Max Verstappen second and Isack Hadjar third. For Alpine, the immediate racing consequence was the loss of both cars from points-scoring positions. For Colapinto, the grid drop remained the formal sanction reported for the next race.

Norris’s statement described a private message and an understanding between the drivers. BBC Sport reported his account, while Formula 1 and Sky Sports published Colapinto’s comments about the crash itself. Those published accounts establish his apology for the collision, but do not provide Colapinto’s own account of the later exchange with Norris. The two drivers’ next meeting on track is due at the following Grand Prix, where Colapinto is set to serve the grid penalty.