McLaren CEO Zak Brown sent an apology text to Sauber, and said sorry to Nico Hulkenberg in person, for comments he made after the opening corner crash in the Austin Formula 1 sprint race.
With McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris getting wiped out after the Turn 1 chain reaction sprint crash that involved Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso as well, Brown quickly pointed the finger of blame elsewhere.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 from the pitwall just after the incident, Brown had called it “amateur hour driving” from drivers at the front.
He added: “I want to see the replay again, but clearly Nico drove into Oscar and he had no business being where he was, went into his left rear tyre.”
Brown’s perception of the incident was not in line with what many others concluded, which was that the catalyst for it all was Piastri aggressively changing his line at the apex in a bid to cut back inside Norris.
Having reviewed the footage himself after the sprint, Brown changed his tune and backed down. Speaking again to Sky, he said: “I think I’ve changed my view. I can’t really put that on Nico.”
With his original comments having grabbed headlines, Brown took it upon himself to reach out to both Sauber team principal Jonathan Wheatley, as well as Hulkenberg, to apologise for what he had said.
Speaking at Austin on Sunday, Wheatley said that he had no big issue with what Brown had said – as it had come in the heat of the moment.
“Zak sent me an apology really quickly afterwards, and he apologised personally to Nico,” said Wheatley.
“Look, this is a passionate sport. I love the passion. You've got two cars, you're fighting for a world championship, and your two cars get taken out of the first corner.
“It's easy to think that it's somebody else's fault sometimes, and you react with passion.
"I think he probably did that on the Sky TV or something - in the heat of the moment and the emotion.
“But I've known Zak a really long time. He's a racer. We're all racers, and we sorted it out afterwards.”
McLaren's own clash review to come
The general consensus was that the Turn 1 pile-up was a racing incident – something that Piastri himself agreed with.
“I was a long way away from the apex and I think the cars behind were going in pretty deep to the corner, so could I have done something a bit different?” he said. “Maybe yes
“But that different thing would have been to potentially let two or three cars go by.
“I can't just drive around the outside of the track and let everyone use up all the space. I think a racing incident is fair.”
The stewards also agreed after they decided that the matter did not require a formal investigation.
However, with the Hulkenberg clash pitching Piastri into Norris and taking him out, the contact between the two McLaren drivers will be subject to a team review after the weekend.
Team boss Andrea Stella said it was pointless dealing with the matter over the Austin weekend, as it would only be a distraction from its attempts to win the race.
“We have had a couple of conversations with Lando and Oscar, but the conversations were fundamentally about resetting,” he said.
“In racing, you can't look backwards too much, especially when you have a qualifying session ahead. So it was a conversation about resetting as usual.
“We will review at the right time the incident. We will do that collaboratively, the team, the drivers, and we will make the right assessment.
“This follows the way we approach this situation based on our racing framework. And both Lando and Oscar were happy with this kind of approach.”
A McLaren review of the opening lap collision between its two drivers at the Singapore Grand Prix led it to conclude that Norris had to take responsibility for what happened there.
As a result, Norris has to face unspecified consequences for the remainder of the campaign.
