Lando Norris shies away from Franco Colapinto penalty debate after clear-the-air talks

Lando Norris has changed his tune in assessing the severity of Franco Colapinto's grid penalty for this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia after the two drivers cleared the air in a phone call following his demand for a race ban.

Norris was eliminated from Saturday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix after Colapinto lost control of his Alpine at Turn 1 on a safety car restart, clattering into team-mate Pierre Gasly, who then collided with Norris.

Colapinto was initially handed a 10-second time penalty for the incident that was converted into a five-place grid drop for this weekend's race at the Sepang International Circuit.

In the immediate aftermath, Norris had called for the FIA to introduce tougher sanctions.

"If you cause a crash on a restart like this, you should have at least a one-race ban," the McLaren driver said. "I think the FIA should be more strict and start handing out bans for this kind of stuff. 

"It's careless of people. It costs a lot of money. All my parts are in the bin now. So yeah, people should just get banned. That's not driving."

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Norris - 'Not my decision'

But the 26-year-old has since apologised, both publicly on social media and directly to Colapinto by phone.

"It didn't need to be a long conversation," said Norris, speaking to the media, including RacingNews365. "It was just a hello.

"I apologised to him for the words and some of the things I said that were wrong, and he apologised to me for the incident and the crash, which is good.

"I like Franco a lot. He's a very nice guy. We always talk on our track walk, on our drivers' parades, and things like that, so I have a lot of time for him.

"We were both just apologising to each other, nothing more than that."

As to whether he now felt the five-place penalty was appropriate, Norris refused to be drawn.

"On the penalty, it is difficult to say," he said. "It's not my decision."

Colapinto confirmed the pair had spoken and moved on from the incident, adding that he understood why Norris reacted as he did in the heat of the moment.