“Obvious” Hamilton to blame for race-ending collision

Lando Norris says it is “obvious” who was to blame for the first corner clash which put him out of the Miami sprint race.

The McLaren driver was eliminated from the sprint race on the first lap after being hit by Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin as part of a chain reaction started by Hamilton.

Norris was hit by Stroll after contact from his team mate Fernando Alonso, who appeared to only hit the sister Aston Martin as a result of contact from Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes. Hamilton had made an aggressive move at pass up the inside of the corner, later claiming it was because he saw a gap to the inside of turn one and had decided to attempt a pass.

The resulting contact put Norris out of the race on the spot, while Stroll suffered damage in the clash and returned to the pits where he also retired. Hamilton went on to finish eighth, but lost the final point after a post-race time penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

Speaking after the sprint race, Norris said it was “obvious” who was responsible for the clash.

“Lewis dived up the inside and caused the incident,” Norris told the official F1 channel. “Nothing I could do about that.”

Although Norris was unsure of the full extent of the damage to his car, he explained it did not seem worth continuing in the race.

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“Damage, I’m not sure – I think everything is okay,” Norris said.

“It looks like my rim was just gone. I thought it was just suspension damage, but, no point in trying to get the car back for a race where there’s hardly any points and damage anything further. So best just to jump out.”

However the stewards ruled the two Aston Martin drivers had already made contact before Hamilton touched Alonso’s car. They therefore determined no driver was chiefly to blame, which was why they decided not to issue any penalties.

“From the video evidence, it appeared that there were at least three collisions that occurred – the first between cars 14 [Alonso] and 18 [Stroll] and then between car 44 [Hamilton] and car 14 and
finally between car 18 and car four [Norris].

“While it appeared to us that the incidents began with cars 14 and 18, the sudden and fast arrival of car 44 contributed to the various collisions. However, we were not able to identify one or more drivers wholly or predominantly to blame for the various collisions or any one of them.

“Also keeping in mind that this was in turn one of lap one where greater latitude is given to…