Russell, Verstappen, Hadjar find Norris call for Colapinto race ban 'too harsh'

Lando Norris’s comments that Franco Colapinto should receive a race ban for his driving at the Azerbaijan Grand Pix have been viewed as too harsh by the podium finishers.

George Russell and Max Verstappen were separated by 0.196s at the checkered flag in Baku after a race that involved multiple Safety Car restarts. On the first restart, Colapinto was too late hitting the brakes for Turn 1 and took out his teammate Pierre Gasly as well as Norris, with the defending champion saying: “People should just get banned, because that’s not driving that deserves to be in Formula 1.”

When Norris comments were put to Russell, the race winner says he feels a higher threshold needs meeting to receive a ban.

“I think that’s too harsh, personally,” Russell said. “I think Safety Car restarts, cold tires, a very small mistake can have big consequences. And from what I saw [on Saturday], 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.”

Russell’s comments were backed up by the two Red Bull drivers that joined him on the podium, with Verstappen saying Colapinto taking ownership of the situation is important.

“I think as long as, of course, the driver that caused it is aware of what he did, right, and apologized,” Verstappen said. “That happens. I mean, a small mistake or misjudgment, you lock up, it’s on the inside, low grip, and then I guess a bit unfortunate that it involves so many cars. But, it’s unfortunate, it happens, and it’s not nice for anyone involved, right? But like George said, I think a race ban probably is a bit much.”

Before Colapinto’s five-place grid penalty for the next race in Malaysia was announced, third-placed Isack Hadjar pointed to other factors that can cause a small misjudgment to have a much bigger impact.

“From my side, I think the track is not good enough,” Hadjar said. “You move out of the racing line, it starts to be very bumpy. It’s hard to generate [tire and brake] temperature behind the Safety Car, it’s going quite slowly. So then you just overdo it and then it has big, big consequences. So, I think a race ban is way too harsh.”