McLaren F1 bosses blame rival drivers for the crash between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris at the start of the United States Grand Prix sprint race.
McLaren Formula 1 bosses Zak Brown and Andrea Stella blamed rival drivers for the crash between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris at the start of the United States Grand Prix sprint race.
Piastri, leading Norris in the championship by 22 points, bounced into his team-mate after colliding with Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg.
The crash took both McLaren drivers out of the race, along with Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso, who was on the inside of Hulkenberg.
Brown, McLaren Racing's chief executive officer, told Sky Sports some of the driving at the front was "amateur hour", adding: "Clearly Nico drove into Oscar and he had no business being where he was."
- Piastri & Norris collide as Verstappen wins sprint
- Ferrari has 'full confidence' in team boss Vasseur
McLaren F1 team principal Andrea Stella added: "The reaction is that we are disappointed that we didn't have the possibility to race.
"It's surprising that some drivers with a lot of experience don't act with justful prudence. Go to the first corner, make sure you don't damage competitors and carry on."
McLaren indicated that Stella was referring to both Hulkenberg and Alonso.
However, 1996 world champion Damon Hill, commentating for BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, said he thought Piastri had not shown enough awareness of the risks of the first corner of an F1 race when he chose to cut back to the inside to try to pass Norris.
The Australian had a better start than the Briton and initially challenged on the outside on the uphill entry to the corner.
But he then cut back to the inside in an attempt to get a run on Norris on the exit, only to collide with Hulkenberg
Piastri said: "Not ideal but I haven't seen what happened, I tried to cut back on Lando and we were both very far from the apex and then got a hit and it sent me into Lando. A shame."
Norris said: "I just got hit, right? I did nothing wrong. Further back things happened and I just got unlucky and got hit because of it. I don't know. I need to look a bit more carefully. It's more people further back just being a bit careless and we are the consequence of that."
Alonso said: "At one point I thought I was in the right place on the inside, but some cars came very fast from the outside switching back and then I was there in the middle."
Hulkenberg, who had qualified a season-best fourth, said: "Big frustrations. All the good work from yesterday in the bin. Just messy.
"Oscar turned in pretty aggressively trying to get the undercut and exit of Turn One but I can't just disappear.
"I had Fernando attack on the inside and I couldn't see him any more. I wanted to leave space for him and then Oscar turned in and the contact was inevitable."
McLaren will review the incident with their drivers but not until after the race weekend. Both cars needed significant repairs before grand prix qualifying at 22:00 BST on Saturday.
Stella said: "Overall disappointed but we take it on the chin, we are now focusing on repairing the cars, there is a lot to do and then we will restart the weekend from there.
"We are in a strong position from our competitiveness point of view so I hope we have the possibility to race, race normally and capitalise on our performance.
"The points are the most important thing, I don't want to talk about mal-intent, just prudence. A little more prudence would be good for everyone."
The race was won by Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who closed in on both McLaren drivers in the championship - he is now 55 points behind Piastri and 33 adrift of Norris.
Stella said: "The implication is what the maths says - we lost eight points with both drivers, but we focus on ourselves. We have a very competitive car and two strong drivers. We look forward to just some normal racing."
Verstappen said he was taking the championship race by race.
Category: General Sports
