'Not supposed to do that': F1 legend accuses Piastri of 'nasty' act towards Norris

Yahoo

8 hours ago

F1 legend Jacques Villeneuve has made extraordinary claims that Oscar Piastri contributed to the collision with Lando Norris in the Canadian Grand Prix. Norris failed to finish after clipping the back of Piastri's car while trying to overtake his McLaren teammate with four laps remaining.
The British driver expected Piastri to leave a gap on the outside, but his gamble backfired when the gap never materialised. Norris clipped his teammate and then hit the wall, and was unable to finish the race.
Norris immediately took the blame, while McLaren also declared the British driver at fault. But former F1 world champion Villeneuve has launched explosive new claims that Piastri moved over to block his teammate and contributed to the crash.
The FIA also ruled that Norris was solely to blame, but Villeneuve doesn't believe that was the case. 'The clash between the two McLaren drivers, [it was] easy to point the finger at Norris,' said the 1997 world champion on Monday night.
'He realised too late that Piastri was moving towards the left because he had his nose in the gearbox of Piastri, he didn't realise it and Piastri was edging gradually towards the left. He's not supposed to be doing that, it was a little bit nasty, so there will be some talks later inside the team.'
Villeneuve's opinion goes against the grain, with the overwhelming majority of the F1 world believing Piastri wasn't at fault at all. And the Canadian legend also reckons officials made the wrong decision to finish the race under safety car conditions.
'What could have been, should have been an exciting race, turned into a not-so-exciting race,' he said. 'The end of the race – the rules allow for red flags so we can have a new start for a two-lap sprint, always exciting, and they decided to have a boring safety car finish. Well, too bad.'
McLaren have since reviewed the incident between Piastri and Norris, but won't be ordering the teammates not to race each other in the future. Some teams would shy way from having their drivers go head-to-head on track, but not McLaren.
Piastri is currently leading the championship by 22 points from second-placed Norris, and McLaren will continue to let them race freely for the F1 title. Team principal Andrea Stella said they would seek to "preserve our parity and equality in terms of how we go racing at McLaren between our two drivers."
He added: "The being free to race and the being clear as to how we go racing is a value of racing. It is a value of racing that we want to try and exercise and respect as much as we can, rather than every time we have a proximity between the two cars then having control from the pit wall. We want to give Lando and Oscar opportunities to race and opportunities to be at the end of the season in the position that they deserve to be in."
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Stella said the drivers' overall points should reflect their performance, rather than any team orders. "This is not necessarily a simple and straight exercise but we want to try and do it as best as we can," he said. "So I don't foresee that (the) episode will change our approach from this point of view."
with AAP