Lando Norris issues heartfelt apology to his teammate and team following incident that casts further doubt on his championship hopes.
While Max Verstappen might not have given the likes of Sky the story they craved, Lando Norris' rash move on his McLaren teammate on the 67th lap did.
Having failed to overtake Oscar Piastri on the main straight, on the run to Turn 1 the Briton attempted to find a gap on the left-hand side of the Australian that wasn't there.
Clipping the rear of his teammate's car, Norris hit the pit-wall, and once the dust had cleared he climbed from his stricken car while his teammate was able to continue unscathed, finishing the race in fourth. It was the first time this season that only one of the Woking team's cars finished in the points.
"Sorry," said Norris in the moments after the clash, before climbing from his car. "All my bad. All my fault. Stupid from me."
Later, speaking to reporters, he was even more contrite.
"I should never have gone for it," he admitted, "it's my complete hindsight thing. I thought he was starting to drift a little bit to the right, so there was an opportunity to go the left.
"Way too much risk, especially on my teammate," he added. "I'm happy nothing happened to him, and I paid the price for my mistake."
Pushed on why he felt the need to be so open in his contrition, he said: "I do it, because our rule, number one is to not make contact with my teammate, and that's what I did.
"McLaren is my family," he added, "I race for them. Every single weekend, I try and do well for them, more than I often try and do well for myself. So when I let them down like this, and when I make a fool of myself in a moment like today, yeah, I have a lot of regret in something like that.
"I'm not proud of that, and I feel bad and I feel like I let down my team. And that's always the worst feeling. Of course, I only really need to apologize to all of them and Oscar as well."
Piastri was quick to confirm that immediately after the race Norris had sought him out in order to apologise in person.
"Lando is a very good guy and I think it's in his character and in his personality to say exactly what he thinks," said the Australian. "And if that's detrimental to himself, or if it's about himself, then it doesn't matter for him and I think that's a great quality of Lando.
"I think it is a good quality," he added. "I think it's good for the whole team going forwards that we can have these conversations and go racing like this and have things not go the way we want and get through them. So, yeah, that's all."
"We've said a few times that it wasn't a matter of if, it was more a matter of when," admitted Andrea Stella. "The when is Canada 2025.
"We never want to see two McLarens having contact," he added, "this is part of our principles. We saw it today.
"This is just the result of a miscalculation, misjudgement from a racing point of view. Which obviously should not happen but at the same time is part of racing and we did appreciate that Lando immediately owned the situation, raised his hand and took responsibility for the accident, and he apologized to the team, to me as team principal, to apologize to the entire team.
"It is important the way we respond and react to these situations, which ultimately will be a very important learning point. It is a learning in terms of experiencing how painful the situations can be and this will only make us stronger in terms of our internal competition and the way we go racing."
Asked if the incident, which has added further pressure on Norris at a time it is already clear he is finding it hard, might unsettle the team, Piastri said: "I think everything will stay the same.
"If it had been a crash in a corner and clearly we got it wrong and too aggressive, then that's one thing. But it was a bit of an unfortunate incident really on straight effectively.
"So, for me, I don't think it will change anything and I think that's the way it should be because ultimately we're both trying to fight for a world championship."
In the eyes of many, that title, as far as the papaya pair are concerned, is already won.
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