Piastri and Norris: Clash in Austin, Race incident? F1 Analysis

In the Austin sprint race, McLaren driver Oscar Piastri insisted that the collision with his teammate and title rival, Lando Norris, was a racing incident. Piastri and Norris, who leads by 22 points in the fight for the championship, were disputing second place at turn 1 of the Circuit of the Americas. The incident involved Piastri and Sauber driver Nico Hülkenberg, as he was trying to overtake Norris.

This crash was the second between McLaren in two weeks, after the incident in Singapore, for which Norris was singled out by the team, with internal “repercussions”, of a sporting and not financial nature, for the English driver.

I believe that for me, it’s a racing incident.

Oscar Piastri

Piastri explained that he didn’t feel the maneuver was too aggressive and that he had to trust his instinct. Hülkenberg, for his part, commented that Piastri turned aggressively to try to overtake on the exit of turn 1.

The collision between Piastri and Norris allowed Max Verstappen, of Red Bull, to score eight points, reducing the gap with Piastri to 55 points. Norris preferred not to blame anyone for the incident, indicating that the team would review it, as they did after Singapore. Verstappen will start from pole position in Sunday’s Grand Prix, ahead of Norris, with Piastri in sixth place.

After a stellar start to the year, Piastri’s performance has declined since his victory at the Dutch Grand Prix. McLaren team boss Andrea Stella confirmed that the incident would be reviewed by the team after the race weekend, adding that conversations focused on getting the most performance out of the rest of the weekend. Stella reiterated her comments after the sprint race, where she seemed to blame Hülkenberg.

I think a bit more prudence on the part of the very experienced drivers, especially when they are in a good position, would have been useful. And I can confirm that this is still my opinion.

Andrea Stella