Piastri accepts Norris apology after Canadian GP collision

CHAMPIONSHIP leader Oscar Piastri accepted McLaren team-mate Lando Norris’s apologies on Sunday after the Briton misjudged a passing move and crashed into him in the closing laps of the Canadian Grand Prix.

The collision on lap 67 of the 70-lap race came when Norris attempted to overtake his Australian team-mate and title rival on the straight, but attacked a diminishing space and hit the back of Piastri’s car, demolishing his own front wing.

Piastri continued and finished fourth while Norris retired.

Mercedes’ George Russell won the race from pole ahead of four-time champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull with teenage rookie Kimi Antonelli third in the second Mercedes to become the third youngest driver to take an F1 podium position.

It was Russell’s first win this season and made him only the fourth different winner this year along with the two McLaren men and Verstappen.

Piastri’s fourth place finish left him frustrated and disappointed as McLaren failed to land a podium finish for the first time this year in the 10th race of the 24-race season.

But he boosted his lead in the drivers’ title race to 22 points with 198 ahead of Norris and Verstappen, who is third on 155. Russell is fourth on 136.

“It’s not ideal for anyone,“ said Piastri. “I’ve not actually seen the incident, so I don’t know exactly what happened, but if Lando has taken full responsibility then that’s how it goes I guess.

“It was just a bit of a tricky race in general and not an ideal finish.”

On his duel with Norris, he added: “It was fair, but he made quite a large move into Turn 10, I held my own into the chicane. It was definitely a tough battle, but a clean one up until that point.

“I’ve not seen the incident, but I don’t think there was any bad intentions involved. I think it was just unfortunate really.

“I will go and have a look — we’re both fighting for a world championship and I’m very thankful to the team that they allow us to race. I don’t expect this to change anything in terms of that.”

‘More than silly’

Piastri added that he was disappointed with the race overall.

“I think our pace was OK, but not the race I expected with the bad start and that kind of cemented us in fourth and I don’t think we had enough of an advantage to do anything else.”

He was also reluctant overplay his advantage in the drivers’ title race.

“For me, this weekend wasn’t good enough and it’s still far too early to think that that is an comfortable advantage or anything like that. There’s a long way to go in the season and we’ve got to try and improve on the whole.”

Norris did not finish and accepted the blame for the accident.

“There’s no one to blame but myself, so I apologise to the whole team and to Oscar as well for attempting something a bit too silly. Glad I didn’t ruin his race and yeah apologies to the team.”

He said it was “more than silly… but that’s racing and just silly on my part. So I’ll go to bed tonight, apologise to everyone and I will crack on.”