Lando Norris has brushed off his collision with Oscar Piastri at F1’s Singapore GP sprint, but risks a penalty for taking his team-mate out of the race.
On the final lap of the 20-lap sprint, which was held in mixed conditions, Norris made a lunge on Piastri on the inside of Turn 5, unsuccessfully backing out of a closing gap and striking Piastri’s right-rear corner.
The collision sent both cars into a spin, with Piastri out of a race with significant rear-end damage and Norris dropping down to eighth at the finish. But Norris risks losing that points-paying position as he has been summoned to the FIA race stewards.
Norris secured eighth over Alpine’s Pierre Gasly by eight seconds, so a 10-second penalty would hand the final point to the Frenchman.
“In the last lap, there was a big opportunity into Turn 5, so I went for it,” Norris said afterwards. “The gap closed a bit more than I would have liked, and obviously I’ve had to back out of it because the gap was closing, so I’ve had to try and avoid the incident. And obviously there still was one.
“But it was a big gap, so I went for it. I have the right to do that. The rest, we go review as a team.”
Piastri said: “I need to look at it. I didn’t see him at the apex. I looked behind into the corner and saw he was a reasonable way behind for a corner like that but I’ll have a look and the team can do what it needs to do.”
Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
The team is understood not to share Norris’ view on the incident. Beyond the points loss, McLaren’s mechanics are also in a race against time to get Piastri’s damaged car ready for qualifying, which has been delayed until 21:30 local time.
Piastri is understood to be requiring a new gearbox, a change which the team can perform without penalty. Teams were allowed to start working on their cars after the sprint at 19:13 local time, giving McLaren just over a two-hour window to get the Australian’s car ready for grand prix qualifying.
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