Lando Norris admitted he was caught out by how quickly the field slowed ahead of him during the Safety Car period.
The McLaren driver almost ran into his team mate Oscar Piastri as they approached turn one in the queue behind the Safety Car. The incident occured as George Russell ahead of them slowed unexpectedly and came to a stop on the right-hand side of the track next to the pit lane entrance.Norris said he noticed the Mercedes slowing but was unsure how much the cars ahead of him were reacting.
“I couldn’t see from the angle, and just from where I was, how much everyone had stopped because of George on the inside,” said Norris. “By the time I kind of looked at George and looked back, I could see them, but it’s hard when you’re directly behind to see if they’re going 100 [kph], 200 or 10.
“They were going 10, so I just got completely caught out. I guess it’s my fault in the end of the day. I was just unlucky with it everyone just checked up so much and I just got screwed over by it, that’s all.”
Norris narrowly missed hitting Piastri, ran onto the gravel trap on the outside then rejoined the queue having lost several places.
The stewards have summoned Norris for “driving erratically under Safety Car conditions, leaving the track and re-joining unsafely and/or overtaking another car behind the Safety Car.”
Alexander Albon is also under investigation for driving erratically in another incident which involved Piastri. The Williams driver, who was following his team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr into the pits during an earlier Safety Car deployment, appeared to slow, causing Piastri to take avoiding action.
This article will be updated
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