Lando Norris delivers his verdict on race-ending Turn 1 clash

Lando Norris was a Turn 1 elimination from the United States Grand Prix Sprint after being tagged by Oscar Piastri.

Neither McLaren completed the opening lap in the Saturday morning affair, with Piastri damaging his front suspension in the Turn 1 melee and Norris the left-rear corner of his car.

Lando Norris reacts to first corner melee

The McLaren pair are locked in battle for the Drivers’ Championship with just 22 points between them heading into the weekend.

Norris qualified second for the Sprint, one place ahead of Piastri, who got the better getaway to draw alongside into the opening corner.

Looking to cut back underneath his teammate, Piastri was collected by Nico Hulkenberg, who found himself squeezed between the McLaren on his right and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin on his left.

That triggered a chain reaction that ultimately saw Norris speared into retirement.

“I don’t know what I’m meant to do in that,” Norris said.

“I just got hit, right? I did nothing wrong.

“Further back, things happened and then I just got unlucky and I got hit because of it.”

Contact between Hulkenberg and Piastri saw the latter pitched into the air, and into Norris’ left-rear wheel.

It resulted in the instant retirement of both papaya machines in a Sprint that was won by Max Verstappen, the Dutchman moving eight points closer to the McLaren pair in the Drivers’ Championship.

“I had a pretty good start, and we both went pretty deep into Turn 1,” Piastri told Sky Sports.

“I tried to cut back and got a got a hit. So yeah, obviously not a great way to start the day, but I need to have another look.”

Speaking from the pit wall shortly after his cars were eliminated, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown labelled the incident “amateur hour” while absolving his drivers of responsibility. It’s a view shared by team principal Andrea Stella.

“It’s surprising that, you know, like some drivers with a lot of experience don’t act with just more prudence,” he told Sky Sports.

“Just more prudence, go through the first corner, make sure you don’t damage competitors and then carry on. So, overall, disappointed but we take it on the chin. We are now focusing on repairing the cars and there’s a lot to do and then we restart the weekend from there.

“I think we are in a strong position from a competitiveness point of view, so we hope we have the possibility to race, race normally, and capitalise on our performance.”

Contact between Norris and Piastri comes in the wake of the Singapore Grand Prix, where the former bundled his teammate aside at Turn 3 to take third place.

Following that race, discussions within the team had deemed that Norris was in the wrong, with the Brit poised to carry unknown repercussions as a result of that incident.

In addition to the McLaren pair’s retirement in the Austin Sprint, Fernando Alonso was also a first corner casualty while Nico Hulkenberg sustained damage that plummeted him down the order after he had to stop for a new front wing.

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