Why Norris apologised to Colapinto after Baku comments

Reigning Formula 1 champion Lando Norris says he issued a public apology to Franco Colapinto to help calm the waters as his calls for a race ban sparked an online backlash.

Norris slammed Colapinto for causing a pile-up at last weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix, calling for a race ban for the Argentinian driver.

The McLaren driver soon reached out to apologise to Colapinto for going too far with his comments straight after the incident, but not before his outburst had triggered another torrent of online abuse directed at him from corners of Colapinto's fanbase.

As a result, Norris decided to also issue a public statement to help calm the waters, although he stressed Colapinto was the only partner that needed apologising to.

"It was more for the wider audience," Norris said on Thursday in Malaysia. "I said what I wanted to Franco and he's the only one really that I need to share my opinion and my apology with.

"I don't need to do it on social media, but at the same time there was obviously a lot of that noise and stuff in the background and I thought it was only sensible to announce or show that I made that apology. I accept that I was in the wrong."

Norris said his chat with Colapinto "didn't need to be very long" as they both accepted blame for their respective wrongdoing in Baku.

"I apologised to him for some of the things I said that were wrong, and he apologised to me for the incident, which is good," Norris explained. "I like Franco a lot, he's a very nice guy, we always talk on our track walk, on our drivers' parades and things like that, so I have a lot of time with him. We were both just apologising to each other, so nothing more than that."

But while accepting he went too far with his comments, he regretted how his post-race comments triggered so much abuse and hoped social platforms could do more to stamp toxic behaviour out.

Franco Colapinto, Alpine, Lando Norris, McLaren, Pierre Gasly, Alpine

Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT images via Getty Images

"Sadly, that's what we and a lot of sports deal with," he said. "Some of it's down to just passion and that's what you always have in sports, and I think you kind of will always have. I think you see a lot more of it because social media is such an easy thing to share your opinions on.

"And to a certain extent I completely respect it. But obviously, to the extent of online abuse, death threats, all of those things are way too far beyond being a fan of a sport or a driver or athlete, whatever it is. I think there's a line.

"It just highlights the fact that social media platforms, sports need to do more, maybe the athletes need to do more to stop this kind of stuff from happening. Because some people can deal with it much better than others."

But Norris, who has significantly scaled back his own social media usage, said the episode would not discourage him from speaking his mind in the future.

"Well, it depends," he pondered. "I should never have said some of the stuff that I said, so I get why some people might have been upset.

"But I think I'm always happy in general to speak my mind. I know I'm not able to please everyone and you're never going to have everyone on your side, so I think that's normal and that's life."