McLaren Racing CEO Zac Brown described the first-lap accident at the US Grand Prix, in which two cars collided and retired during a sprint, as “amateur hour driving”.
Oscar Piastri tried to reduce teammate Lando Norris on the inside at the apex of Turn 1, where he was battling behind Max Verstappen, but the Sauber with Nico Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso on the inside collided with Piastri’s rear left, launching the championship leader into the air and further contact with Norris. Brawn laid the blame for the incident on Hulkenberg, as both cars retired at the spot.
“It was terrible. Neither of our drivers was to blame,” Brown told Sky Sports. “Amateur hour driving by some drivers up front wiped out both of us.
“I’d like to see the replay again, but it’s clear that Nico rammed into Oscar and he couldn’t stay where he was and rammed him into the left rear tire.”
Although Norris did not directly name Hulkenberg, he felt that Piastri was clearly responsible for causing the contact between the two parties.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with it,” Norris said. “I just got hit, right? I know I didn’t do anything wrong. Things happened further back and then I just got unlucky and got hit because of it.”
“I don’t know, but we need to look a little more carefully. There are more people behind us just being a little careless, and we are the result of that.”
Piastri was also cautious about blaming any particular driver for the incident, but felt that he was far enough away from the corner apex that he could not try to switch inside against Norris.
“Obviously it’s not ideal, but we haven’t seen what actually happened yet,” Piastri said. “I was trying to reduce the land. We were both pretty far off the top and I got the hit and it obviously pushed me into the land. So it’s disappointing.”
