Lando Norris has publicly apologised to Franco Colapinto after telling reporters in Baku the day before that the Alpine driver deserved a race ban for wiping him out at the safety car restart.

Standing next to his written-off McLaren on Sunday, Norris had said whoever caused the pile-up should be sitting out the next round. On Monday morning, the 2025 world champion posted an Instagram story admitting he had gone too far.

“After the race, I sent Franco a message apologising for the comments I made that I simply should not have said,” Norris wrote.

“I know better and emotions were running high but that is not an excuse, it was wrong of me.”

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Norris said he had reached out to Colapinto privately before publishing the post.

“Me and Franco came to a good understanding, and are still good friends and are both excited to get back racing this weekend,” he added.

What Norris originally said

In the immediate aftermath of the crash, Norris told reporters that the FIA needed to be tougher on drivers who cause restart pile-ups.

“If you cause a crash on a restart like this, you should have at least a one-race ban,” he said.

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“It is just careless. It costs a lot of money, all my parts are in the bin now. It is not driving that deserves to be in Formula One.”

He went further in comments picked up by The Race, suggesting there were “some drivers that shouldn’t be in Formula 1.” His Instagram post on Monday walked all of that back.

Colapinto took the blame first

Colapinto had already accepted responsibility on Sunday. He locked up under braking at Turn 1 on Lap 36 of 51 during the first safety car restart, launching into Norris and also collecting his own Alpine team-mate Pierre Gasly.

“Just a big sorry to all of them, to the factory, to Pierre of course,” Colapinto said.

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“[I] took him out, so [I’m] really disappointed.”

The stewards agreed with him. They ruled Colapinto was “wholly or predominantly to blame for the collision” and wrote that he “braked too late and entered the corner on the inside at a speed which did not allow him to make the corner in a controlled manner.”

Because Colapinto had retired from the race, the standard 10-second time penalty was converted into a five-place grid drop for the next round, the Bahrain Grand Prix, which is being held at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia.

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