Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly have given their version of events after being involved in a bizarre clash in the Miami Grand Prix. On Lap 41 of 57, Gasly had run wide at Turn 7, and came back onto the track just as Norris was coming through. There was then contact between the pair, with Norris dramatically spinning and losing the right-rear tyre of his McLaren. The incident led to a Virtual Safety Car being called, but this was then escalated to a full Safety Car in order to clean up the debris left on track. Norris was immediately out of the race, whilst Gasly retired soon afterwards.
Norris: Gasly shouldn't have been drifting to the track
When quizzed on what happened after the Grand Prix, Norris argued that Gasly had drifted too much upon his return to the track. "Honestly, the first thing I need to do is speak to him to understand what was happening," Norris told media, including RacingNews365.com . "He obviously went off the track, he had a lot of damage and so on. From my opinion, he just drifted across to the left quite a bit; the track's kind of kinking to the right, and he wasn't turning to the right. "If he was going to box – because I heard someone said he was going to pit or something – then he should be getting out my way a lot more than what he did. "It's tough. If he was struggling to control the car, it's life, I'm unlucky. It happens in racing sometimes. But, if it wasn't that bad, he just shouldn't have been drifting to the track like he was doing. "It looked like he was looking in his right mirror, and wasn't looking where I was on his left. I'm not sure, I don't want to blame him. I just need to speak to him and see what he said."
Gasly says that Norris apologised to him
As for Gasly, the AlphaTauri driver explained that he had suffered damage to his car in an earlier clash with Fernando Alonso, for which the Spaniard later received a five-second time penalty. This meant that Gasly was going slowly on his way back to the pits, but he feels that he left enough room for Norris to go through. "On our last lap going back to the pits, [I] was going slow after Turn 7, and all the cars passed," he stated. "I was trying to turn right to give room, and then Norris came and clipped my front left tyre." Gasly says that Norris has since apologised for what happened, yet this is little consolation to the Frenchman. "We spoke, he came to apologise, but unfortunately it's not going to give us back the points," Gasly added. "It's a big shame. I'm extremely disappointed because it was a great afternoon. We had a brilliant start, passing Lewis [Hamilton] into Turn 1, running in P7 after that. "We would have had a great battle with Fernando, but he just took it a step too far, and unfortunately today it's ruined our race."
Apology to Norris "not necessary" from Gasly
When asked if he had apologised to Norris too, Gasly reasoned that he felt it was not needed. "I don't think that's necessary," he said. "I was trying to give room. I don't know where I could have gone, and I was slow, busy trying to get back to the pits. "Obviously, [it's] unfortunate for him, because it's not the way you want to finish the race, but I think obviously it all started with Alonso, who crashed into us and [broke] our car."
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