Brit rookie Norris lays the blame on Stroll for smash
BRITISH teenager Lando Norris crashed out of the Spanish Grand Prix, laying the blame at the feet of Canadian Lance Stroll. The 19-year-old McLaren driver tangled with Stroll’s Racing Point at the second corner, sending a spray of stones right across the track as they scrapped for 14th place. It ended both their races and brought out a safety car while the track was brushed clean. Norris, who had lost ground on the opening lap after starting 10th, said: ‘I didn’t think it was my fault. I haven’t heard what he thought and what he knew
about the incident. I just know I had my car on the inside for turn two, having been on the outside for turn one. ‘He left me space for turn one so he knew I was there. I don’t know if he thought I had disappeared, but he then just cut across the front of my car and took us both out. ‘I let the team down because I didn’t finish the race so I said sorry to my guys, definitely not to him. Yes, it was his fault.’ It was the second time Norris has been involved in a crash during the first five rounds of his Formula One career after being unfortunate to go off when Daniil Kvyat’s Red Bull caught him in China last month. This time Norris was called before the stewards along with 20-year-old Stroll, the Canadian son of Racing Point’s bankrolling billionaire Lawrence Stroll. Stroll Jnr defended himself, saying: ‘There was not much room there. I had to make the corner, so I turned in. There was not much I could do.’ The stewards did not punish either man, saying that neither was ‘wholly or predominantly’ culpable.