McLaren chief Zak Brown absolved both his drivers of blame for the crash which took both of them out of the United States Grand Prix Sprint race on the first lap. Nico Hulkenberg made contact with Oscar Piastri at the first corner, sending the Aussie spinning into his team-mate Lando Norris.
The Brit was immediately out with terminal damage. Piastri was initially able to continue but swiftly reported suspension damage and was told to stop the car. Reacting to the incident just a few seconds after it happened, Brown told Sky Sports he did not blame his drivers and was critical of Hulkenberg’s actions.
He said: “That was terrible. Neither of our drivers were to blame there. That was some amateur hour driving from some of the drivers up there at the front and wiped our two guys. I want to see the replay again but, clearly, Nico drove into Oscar and he had no business being where he was and went into his left-rear tyre.”
With just a few hours between the Sprint race and qualifying for Sunday’s main event, McLaren were left with a major repair job on both cars. Brown had not yet seen the extent of the damage, but said he was confident that their mechanics would be able to get them ready to drive for that session later in the day.
But the double DNF in the Sprint opened up the door for Max Verstappen to take another chunk of points out of Piastri’s championship lead. The Dutchman started on pole having got the better of the Mclarens in Sprint qualifying and was in line for a decent haul of points as he battled with George Russell for victory.
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