Norris wants F1 race ban for Colapinto
Lando Norris says Franco Colapinto should face a Formula 1 race ban for his error during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix that took Norris, Colapinto and Pierre Gasly out of the race.
After a fairly processional first 30-plus laps of the Baku race, Colapinto had a massive lock-up while entering Turn 1 on a safety car restart while running in 10th place, seemingly caught out by the rate of deceleration from the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli ahead of him.
He avoided hitting Antonelli but instead had to hug the inside wall and never scrubbed off anywhere near enough speed, ploughing into Alpine team-mate Gasly in the braking zone, with the chain reaction also eliminating Norris.
It was an error that Norris, who had had a particularly difficult weekend up to then and had his own Turn 1 mistake just before the safety car, did not take kindly to.
Norris stressed that he had not seen the replay at the time of speaking but said: "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 1."
On whether race leader George Russell's approach to the restart bunched up the field too much, he said: "George can do what he wants.
"In Formula 1 I think you expect drivers to anticipate things, know grip is going to be low, know tyre temps are low - they weren't even that low.
"In Formula 1 you want to be against the best drivers in the world, and when stuff like this happens, it's because...yeah, [it] shouldn't be there."
He reiterated later that he wanted "at least a one-race ban" for this kind of crash.
A race ban in F1 requires a driver to amass 12 penalty points in a 12-month period - which has become a lot less likely since the FIA revised its approach to penalty points, seeking only to penalise what it perceived as actively dangerous driving or unsportsmanlike conduct.
By virtue of a number of yellow flag infringements, Colapinto is joint-top with Carlos Sainz in the current penalty points leaderboard - but, pending a verdict on this incident, that still means only four points, so there is no precedent under the current system by which he would be banned for the next round.
Colapinto, for his part, was immediately apologetic on the radio and maintained that tone in his media appearance.
"I was out of control completely. Not a lot more to say than sorry to the team, to Pierre, of course, to all the factory," he said.
"I'm sorry to Lando also. I'm sorry to everyone. It was a big mistake, of course."
He didn't respond specifically to Norris's suggestion of a race ban but said: "I do expect to get something [in terms of a penalty], of course. I don't know, I'm not a steward."
A 10-second penalty was assessed against Colapinto as the Baku race concluded - but as he did not reach the finish, this is now set to be converted to a grid drop.
