Lando Norris says FIA should hand out bans after Turn 1 clash with Colapinto
Lando Norris knew this one was going wrong long before Turn 1 ended it for him. McLaren's straight-line speed had been off since the day before, and whatever the team tried overnight hadn't fixed it: from the moment the race went green, Norris was a sitting duck down the straights, watching car after car sail past with nothing he could do about it.
"I just was slow," he said. "Just struggling a lot in the straights. You saw how quickly everyone came past me. So just an impossible race out there for me from that side and straight line speed today. Hopefully we get that fixed for next time."
It was the sort of afternoon built purely around damage limitation, and he admitted he hadn't helped himself either, conceding a mistake of his own along the way. Then came a safety car, and with it a restart that undid what little he had left to fight for.
Franco Colapinto's move at the Turn 1 restart collected both Pierre Gasly and Norris, ending the Briton's race on the spot and leaving him with a written-off car rather than any more laps to salvage.
He made no attempt to soften his reaction. "I just got taken out," he said, before adding that it was "just some drivers that shouldn't be in Formula 1, to be honest." Asked to expand, he didn't hedge. "I think the FIA should be more strict and start handing out bans for this kind of stuff. It's just careless from people. It costs a lot of money, all my parts are in the bin now. People should just get banned, because that's not driving that deserves to be in Formula One."
Even with a car already compromised by its straight-line speed issue and a restart that finished the job, Norris was careful not to let the weekend distort the bigger picture.
McLaren, he pointed out, have won two and should have won three of the last four races, and this was never going to be a weekend to remember on pace alone. "We're going to be in for another tough few weekends, I imagine, but maybe Malaysia is a better one for us."
The speed deficit still needs solving before then. The restart, as far as Norris is concerned, needed nothing more than cleaner driving from the man behind him.
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