Lando Norris has explained why he felt compelled to add a public apology to the private one he offered Franco Colapinto after strongly criticising the Alpine driver for causing a collision that took the Brit out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Lando Norris has explained why he felt compelled to issue a public apology to Franco Colapinto after already apologising privately to the Alpine driver for strongly criticising him over the collision that ended the Briton's Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Colapinto locked up at a Safety Car restart and crashed into his Alpine team-mate Pierre Gasly, who was then sent into Norris.
All three drivers were forced to retire from the race, with Colapinto subsequently handed a five-place grid penalty for this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix. "It [the apology] was more for the wider audience, I would say. I said what I wanted to, to Franco, and he's the only one really that I need to share my opinion and share my apology with," said Norris.
"I don't need to do it on social media, and I don't think you need to use social media to make an apology. But at the same time, there was a lot of noise in the background, so I thought it was sensible to show publicly that I had apologised. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player "I accepted that I was wrong.
I'm generally the same with my driving, to accept when I've done something wrong or accept something I've not. "But because it was something I said on TV, I thought it was fair that I shared it with everyone, because they all saw it. I didn't think it was a true value of how I hold myself.
At the same time, I still see social media at times and saw some bits, some not so good, some better." Colapinto also apologised to Gasly and Norris for his mistake but says it's "tricky" to control social media backlash which he feels comes from "every fan base". But Norris, who has previously been outspoken about online abuse, stated "some people can deal with it much better than others". He added: "Sadly that's what we have to deal with - a lot of sports deal with it, which some of it is down to passion, which you have in sport and you see more of it because on social media it's easy to share your opinions.
"And to a certain extend I respect it [passion] but to the extent of online abuse, death threats - all those things are far beyond being a fan of a sport or a driver or a person. It's something that has been around every sport for a long time and highlights that social media platforms and sports need to do more to stop this kind of stuff from happening." Colapinto says he does not expect to face any consequences from Alpine and insisted that he trusts Flavio Briatore after the team boss stated he would take time "reflect on what course of action should be taken" after the "very poor" error. "There are times in the team when everyone is angry and it's tricky to move forward.
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