Lando Norris explains ‘silly accident’ with Pierre Gasly at Miami Grand Prix

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Lando Norris has put his collision with Pierre Gasly which saw him crash out of the Miami Grand Prix down as a “silly accident”.

Norris was struggling near the back of the field after being caught in a DRS train at the inaugural Miami race but failed to finish for the first time this season after clipping Gasly along the straight.

In what was a bizarre and avoidable incident, Norris clipped Gasly’s wheel as he went for the overtake but managed to avoid the wall as he spun out, with the French driver seemingly unaware that Norris was behind him.

“It’s tough. I’ve looked at it a few times now but it’s tricky,” Norris told Sky Sports. “I don’t know if he had damage or something.

“I left space obviously, I knew he was on my right but the track kind of kinks to the right. I’m going with the flow of the circuit and it didn’t look like he was. He was looking in his right mirror.

“I thought I did what I would normally do but just ended up being a silly accident. I’m quite annoyed I guess, we could have scored maybe one or two points today but it happens. We’re lucky we didn’t lose out on too much.”

The result was a backwards step for McLaren, after Norris claimed a surprise podium at Imola two weeks ago, and the team’s pace has been heavily dependent on track layout and suitability.

Gasly explained afterwards that he had sustained damage to his AlphaTauri car and was on his way back to the pits when the collision with Norris occurred.

“Fernando [Alonso] crashed into us in turn 1 and basically broke the rear right of the car,” Gasly said. “So we tried to go for one more lap to see if we could continue and make it to the end of the race but the car was too damaged to stay on track as we saw through the first sector.

“On the way back to the pits, we had contact with Norris and I was trying to turn right and let the guys pass and then Lando came and unfortunately we had contact.

“I must say I’m extremely disappointed because it was a great start, it was a great afternoon. We passed Lewis [Hamilton] at the start, we were looking for around P8 at the chequered flag and it would have been a nice battle with Fernando but I don’t really know what’s happened.

“I haven’t seen the footage but he hit us quite hard at the back and broke the car. A lot positives but obviously extremely disappointing not to finish the race.”