McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has confirmed there will be a detailed review of the latest crash between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

Stella, though, is standing firm in his originally held belief that “drivers that come with a lot of experience” played their part in the Turn 1 incident in the Sprint that resulted in the instant retirements of Piastri and Norris.

The duo sustained severe damage to their cars after Piastri attempted a switchback move on Norris through the sharp left-hander at the first corner, only to turn in on the advancing Nico Hulkenberg in his Sauber, who in turn hit Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.

In being shunted by Hulkenberg, Piastri was then bounced into the left rear of Norris, sending the Briton spinning out.

Stella refused to name names in his assessment, but given Hulkenberg and Alonso are two of the most experienced drivers on the grid, his inference was obvious.

There are many highly experienced observers, however, who feel Piastri braked too late, and was over-aggressive in turning back into the line where Hulkenberg, in particular, had nowhere to go.

“Obviously, we have had a couple of conversations with Lando and Oscar, but the conversations were fundamentally about resetting,” said Norris, speaking to the media, including RacingNews365 after qualifying for the grand prix.

“In racing, you can’t look backwards too much, especially when you have a qualifying session ahead, so it was a conversation about resetting as usual.

“We will review the incident at the right time. We will do that collaboratively, the team, the drivers, and we will make the right assessment.

“This follows the way we approach this situation based on our racing framework, and both Lando and Oscar were happy with this kind of approach.

“What I said straight after the sprint was that I think a bit more prudence, from drivers that come with a lot of experience, especially when they are in a good position, would have been helpful. And I can confirm that this is still my opinion.”

Missing sprint data ‘costly’

The double crash disaster had an obvious knock-on effect as Stella confirmed that crucial data could not be gathered to help it prepare for the grand prix.

When Norris and Piastri commenced qualifying a few hours after their incident with heavily repaired cars, the opening laps in Q1 were their first of the day.

Norris salvaged a front-row grid spot, as he did in sprint qualifying, lining up alongside polesitter Max Verstappen in his Red Bull. As for Piastri, he continued his struggles this weekend and will start sixth.  

“The fact that we didn’t run the sprint, it was costly, not only because of the points that we missed, but also because it was a very intense, extensive operations in the garage,” said Stella.

“We needed to change the rear end of both cars. We needed to change the front suspension on Oscar’s car and some other parts, [such as the] floors. So it’s been a significant amount of damage and a significant burden from an operational point of view.

“I want to take the opportunity to thank all the mechanics and everyone involved with the operations, because given the volume of work, all this was executed with precision, and we had two reliable cars for qualifying.

“When you miss the sprint, you also miss the information on continuous laps, which is also important to understand where you can fine-tune your car.

“For instance, with this generation of cars that are so sensitive to ride heights, you actually miss some information as to whether you can squeeze in a final millimetre or not, and a millimetre on this generation of cars, is a significant amount of milliseconds.

“So there’s been an impact of a different kind, but that’s what it is.

“Our focus was on maximising the setup, for instance, for qualifying with the information we had; maximising the driving. It wasn’t easy for Lando and Oscar, because in Q1 they were the first laps of today, and then there was the red flag.

“So Q1 became very, very tight for both Oscar and Lando. Not ideal. But we are racers, we reset. We have come through qualifying, and we look forward to the race.”