Norris calls for Colapinto ban after Baku crash ends title bid

Norris demands ban for Colapinto after Baku DNF

World champion Lando Norris has called for Alpine's Franco Colapinto to be banned after a first-lap restart incident at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix ended his race and ruined what had been a difficult weekend for the McLaren driver at Baku City Circuit.

Norris was on course for valuable points before the chain-reaction crash at Turn 1. Colapinto locked up under braking at the Safety Car restart, slid into team-mate Pierre Gasly and was then hit by Gasly's Alpine, which knocked Norris out of the race. All three cars retired.

Norris, who started from P5 after a qualifying lock-up, had earlier lost ground to Isack Hadjar and Max Verstappen before dropping behind Gasly and Kimi Antonelli. He said the weekend was "one to forget" and criticised his own straight-line speed.

"I just was slow. I was struggling a lot on the straights. You saw how quickly everyone came past me… Just an impossible race out there for me from that side, straight-line speed, today."

After the incident Norris was blunt about the consequences of the contact.

"I still made the mistake. At the end of the day, I just got taken out… just some drivers that shouldn’t be in F1, to be honest."

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Norris escalated his criticism to a call for a ban.

"Give him a ban. It's quite simple."

"The FIA should be more strict and start handing out bans for this kind of stuff. It's careless from people. It costs a lot of money. All my parts are in the bin now, so people should just get banned for this kind of driving. (They) don't deserve to be in Formula 1. If you cause a crash on a restart like this, yeah, you should have at least a one-race ban."

Colapinto apologised for the error.

"I can be sorry to everyone. It's been a big mistake, of course. I just locked up and then I was very out of control."

The stewards gave Colapinto a 10-second penalty in the race. As he had already retired, the penalty will be converted into a grid drop for the next race, the Bahrain Grand Prix. The size of the grid penalty has not been confirmed but is likely to be in the order of five places.

The retirement was Norris' first since Monaco and ended an eight-round points streak, denting what was already a slim championship challenge. He had arrived in Baku on the back of wins in the Netherlands and Hungary as McLaren continued to fight Mercedes for the lead.

"We won two and should have won three of the last four races," he admitted. "Plenty of positives, obviously not this weekend… not quick enough. We knew that. We're going to be in for another tough few weekends, I imagine. Maybe Malaysia is a better one for us."

Alpine lost a chance to score with both drivers running seventh and tenth before the incident. Racing Bulls driver Arvid Lindblad finished seventh, extending Racing Bulls' gap over Alpine in the fight for fifth in the constructors' championship to 15 points.

Gasly said he was "crushed" by the outcome.

"We're all very disappointed with the outcome after such a strong weekend, strong race. It's still difficult to process what just happened."

George Russell won the race despite a late challenge from Max Verstappen. A McLaren spokesperson said it was too early to say whether the Baku incident would prevent Norris from using the upgraded parts the team debuted in Baku at the next round.