A restart crash in Baku has turned into something considerably uglier than a racing incident—and Lando Norris is at the center of it all.
Franco Colapinto wiped out Norris and his own Alpine teammate, Pierre Gasly, at a Safety Car restart on lap 36 of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, locking up and diving down the inside of Turn 1. Norris had already slipped down the order after a lock-up of his own and was scrapping in the midfield when the contact came. Colapinto took a 10-second penalty and will serve a five-place grid drop at the next round in Malaysia.
Norris didn’t hold back afterwards. “I was just slow,” he told Sky Sports, admitting his own mistakes before turning on Colapinto. “But at the end of the day, I just got taken out. Just some drivers that shouldn’t be in Formula 1 to, be honest.”
He doubled down with the written press, calling for a harsher response. “If you cause a crash on a restart like this, you should have at least a one-race ban,” he said. “It is just careless. It costs a lot of money, all my parts are in the bin now.”
The Fallout Spreads Beyond the Track
Colapinto owned the mistake almost immediately. “Cold brakes, cold tyres, I was completely out of control,” he said, apologising to the team, to Gasly, and to Norris. “Big, big sorry, it’s a big mistake.”
Gasly, whose weekend had been going well until then, was less quick to move on. “I can’t find my words,” he said. Asked whether the partnership with Colapinto was still intact, he offered a measured answer. “Respect. It’s all about respect. As long as there is respect, everything is possible.”
Other drivers pushed back on Lando Norris’s ban call. Race winner George Russell called it “too harsh,” arguing that race bans should be reserved for drivers doing something intentionally dangerous or reckless. “It was a small error that had a big consequence,” he said. Max Verstappen agreed, noting that Colapinto had recognised what he’d done and apologised. “A race ban probably is a bit much,” he said.
Then the online reaction turned nasty. Norris was hit with a torrent of abuse across his social media channels, largely from Colapinto’s supporters, and Alpine issued a public statement condemning it. “Mistakes happen when racing at the limit and no matter the result or outcome, nobody should be subject to hateful or abusive comments,” the team said. It stressed that the condemnation wasn’t aimed at any one fan base, adding: “It has become a regular occurrence in recent races and cannot be condoned.”
The problem isn’t new for this group. Ahead of the Baku weekend, Gasly had revealed that he, his girlfriend and family members received threats after he held up Colapinto in the closing stages of the Madrid Grand Prix.
Title Picture Narrows—With Lando Norris Likely Out
The crash also all but ended Lando Norris’ title defense. His failure to finish leaves him 116 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli, with only eight rounds remaining.
Russell, meanwhile, is the biggest beneficiary of the weekend. He took his third win of the season, trimming Antonelli’s advantage from 81 points to 66 with a possible 208 still on the table, and now stands as the only realistic threat to Antonelli’s championship.
What started as a two-car misjudgement on cold tyres has stretched well beyond the Baku street circuit. Lando Norris wanted a stricter FIA. Alpine now wants a kinder fan base. Neither request looks simple.
