Carlos Sainz explains first-lap collision with Lando Norris at Interlagos | 2021 Brazilian GP. Carlos explains first-lap collision with Lando at Interlagos.

Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz felt that Lando Norris had tried to take Turn 1 too early at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace circuit, which led to their collision on lap 1.

The McLaren driver got a good launch in the start of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, spotting an opening around the outside of Carlos, whi started from third place. But turning back in to negotiate the first corner he would clip the SF21 car of Carlos, resulting in a puncture which dropped him to the back of the grid. Lando Norris could only recover until tenth place, which meant that McLaren scored just one point at Interlagos.

If Carlos Sainz was at fault in any way for the crash then he is sorry, but the Spanish driver does not believe he was: “To be honest I need to look into it because it’s a very fine line between who turns into who,” he said, as reported by Sky F1 – “Obviously the corner goes left and I was holding the inside but I don’t think I deliberately did anything against him, if anything I felt like he turned in a bit early into Turn 1 and we tangled. But racing incident, sorry to him if I did something wrong, but to be honest I don’t think I did.” – he added.

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Lando Norris too had not had the chance to review the footage, but claimed it was a frustrating day for him where he had hoped for better than P10:

“I haven’t seen it so I can’t comment, I need to look at it myself and see. But I was still the guy in the car, whether or not it was my fault I will see in a bit, but obviously it put us out of the race pretty much, still recovered well to get one point and one point is more than nothing, but we could have had a much better day today. So frustrating.” – he explained.

In the end Lando Norris saw a gap and went for it, a move he will not apologise for, while at the same time suggesting that maybe the Ferrari driver could have left him more room on the outside.

“I don’t know what else I could have done, it’s impossible to see, you have to look forward a lot of the time. I had a much better start so I had to go to the right, he squeezed me and whether he could have given me a little bit more room or something, not because he’s nice, but just because we are racing and at some point I’ve got to come back on, my two wheels are off but I’m still on the track. I went for it because I had a chance to be ahead of the Ferraris, they’ve had better pace all weekend, so if I wanted to go for it I’m not going to just lift off and wave him back past. Frustrating but there was a gap and I went for it, so I can’t apologise for that part of it, maybe the bit after I will have to do and see.” – the McLaren driver concluded.