Franco Colapinto will face further consequences beyond the grid penalty he must serve in Malaysia, after Alpine team principal Flavio Briatore said he will decide on additional action following the Argentine's crash at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Colapinto misjudged his braking point after a safety car restart, locking his front wheels and sending his Alpine into Pierre Gasly, who was then knocked into Lando Norris' McLaren. The stewards issued a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision, but as Colapinto had already retired from the race due to damage, it was converted into a five-place grid drop for the rearranged Bahrain Grand Prix, which takes place next weekend in Malaysia.
Briatore's displeasure
Briatore expressed his disappointment with the incident, which cost the team a double points finish and left them 15 points behind Racing Bulls in the battle for the top of the midfield in the constructors' championship. He said he would take time to reflect on what course of action should be taken against Colapinto.
"Obviously, I'm extremely disappointed with the outcome of today's race, knowing we lost valuable points in the championship fight. These sort of incidents shouldn't happen, particularly when we were running well with both cars in point-scoring positions," Briatore said.
"I feel very sorry for the team and for Pierre who did a great job all weekend and my apologies also go to Lando [Norris] and McLaren for ruining their race. I know that Franco has taken full responsibility for it, as he should. In fact, he braked far too late considering the context of the race and the safety car restart. It was a very poor move for a driver of his experience.
"I want to take time to reflect on it and consider what course of action should be taken, so we can learn from it and avoid such a situation in future."
Norris calls for bans
Defending champion Norris was also critical of the move, though he did not mention Colapinto by name. He said: "There are just some drivers that shouldn't be in Formula 1, to be honest."
Norris added: "I think the FIA should be more strict and start handing out bans for this kind of stuff. It's just careless from people. It costs a lot of money, all my parts are in the bin now. People should just get banned, because that's not driving that deserves to be in Formula 1. I've not seen it but, if you cause a crash on a restart like this, you should have at least a one-race ban."
