Alpine chief Flavio Briatore says he will take time to “reflect on what course of action should be taken” after Franco Colapinto’s “very poor” error caused a three-car collision in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Attempting to make a bold move from 10th place down the inside into Turn One at the first Safety Car restart, Colapinto locked his brakes and hit the side of team-mate Pierre Gasly, who was sent straight into Lando Norris’ McLaren on his outside. All three drivers retired.
Gasly had been running a strong seventh at the time and the incident cost Alpine what stood as seven points overall.
With both Alpines and Norris having dropped out ahead of him, Arvid Lindblad instead came through late in the race to finish seventh and stretch Racing Bulls’ lead over Alpine in the fight for fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship to 15 points with a scheduled eight rounds left.
Speaking in Alpine’s official press release after the race, executive advisor Briatore made clear his frustration at Colapinto’s driving, for which the Argentine unreservedly apologised, and said they would work out what to do to ensure lessons were learnt to avoid a repeat in future.
“Obviously I’m extremely disappointed with the outcome of today’s race, knowing we lost valuable points in the Championship fight,” said Briatore.
“These sorts of incidents shouldn’t happen, particularly when we were running well with both cars in point-scoring positions.
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“I feel very sorry for the team and for Pierre who did a great job all weekend and my apologies also go to Lando [Norris] and McLaren for ruining their race.
“I know that Franco has taken full responsibility for it, as he should; in fact he braked far too late considering the context of the race and the safety car restart. It was a very poor move for a driver of his experience.
“I want to take time to reflect on it and consider what course of action should be taken, so we can learn from it and avoid such a situation in future.”
Colapinto will take a five-place grid penalty at this coming week’s Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia in lieu of the 10-second time penalty he was unable to serve in the race as he had retired.
Speaking in the immediate aftermath of the incident, a frustrated Norris said that drivers who cause incidents like Colapinto did should be banned for one race.
Andrea Stella, Norris’ McLaren team boss, said they trusted the stewards to make the right decisions, adding that drivers should also be expected to race with “a certain degree of just common sense”.
“It’s a complex matter,” said Stella before Colapinto’s converted grid drop was officially confirmed.
“I guess this is being reviewed by the stewards as we speak, pretty much. I’m sure it will be reviewed by Flavio as well. I’m not sure which one is going to be harsher for whoever caused the problem.
“I think, independently of the dissuasion that you can have because of the penalty, I think when you drive in Formula 1 and you are approaching Turn 1 in Baku and you have seen so many videos of the past, you just should be capitalising on this experience that you should be having as a Formula 1 driver.
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“The consequence in this case, which I’m sure, is a shame for Alpine for both drivers, and there’s a penalty for other drivers.
“Definitely the penalty should take into account that there are some circuits in which you have to use extra prudency, and there’s a full history of problems that happened like this, especially in a street circuit where there’s no way to use the runoff area to somehow mitigate the consequences of somebody running onto you.
“We trust the stewards, their approach, but above all, we should trust the drivers that they apply a certain degree of just common sense I would say while driving.”
‘That’s too harsh’ – Russell, Verstappen, Hadjar disagree with race ban suggestion
Saturday’s top-three finishers in Baku were asked in the post-race press conference about Norris’ comments but all agreed that banning a driver for a race for such an incident would be a step too far.
Baku race winner George Russell said: “I think that’s too harsh, personally.
“I think Safety Car restarts, cold tyres, a very small mistake can have big consequences.
“And from what I saw today, that’s what it looked like. It was a small error that had a big consequence. I think, personally, race bans should come from drivers intentionally doing something very dangerous and very reckless. So I think it was unfortunate.”
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who finished a close second in the race, added: “I think as long as, of course, the driver that caused it is aware of what he did, right, and apologised.
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“And, I mean, yeah, that happens. I mean, like, a small mistake or misjudgement, you lock up, it’s on the inside, low grip, and, of course, then I guess a bit unfortunate that it involves so many cars.
“But, yeah, unfortunate, happens, and it’s not nice, I think. Not nice for anyone involved, right? But like George said, I think, yeah, a race ban probably is a bit much.”
Third-place finisher Isack Hadjar agreed with Russell and Verstappen, especially as he felt there were mitigating circumstances in the incident.
“I think the track is not good enough,” said the Red Bull driver.
“You move out of the racing line, it starts to be very bumpy. It’s hard to generate temperature behind the Safety Car, it’s going quite slowly.
“So then, yeah, you just overdo it and then it has big, big consequences. So, I think, yeah, a race ban is way too harsh.”
Formula 1 heads to Malaysia for the first time since 2017 as it hosts the Bahrain Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit – watch live coverage from Friday morning, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime