F1 rival reveals McLaren boss apology after US Grand Prix crash

McLaren boss Zak Brown got in touch with an F1 rival after Saturday's sprint race to offer an apology for his reaction to a crash which took out both of his drivers.

The first-corner incident ruined the papaya team's day, with the Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg being squeezed by Fernando Alonso on his left and Oscar Piastri on his right, eventually hitting the latter and sending him into Lando Norris.

The McLaren CEO spoke to Sky Sports in the aftermath of the crash, saying 'clearly Nico drove into Oscar and he had no business being where he was', and calling the driving 'amateur hour'.

However, speaking again to Sky during qualifying just a few hours later, he admitted: "I've reviewed it, I think I've changed my view. I can't really put that on Nico. In the heat of the moment, obviously pretty bothered what I saw there, a lot of incidents in Turn 1. But I don't think that's on Nico."

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Sauber boss Jonathan Wheatley revealed after the race that Brown had also reached out personally to the team and Hulkenberg to apologise for his comments, saying: “Zak sent me an apology really quickly afterwards. He apologised personally to Nico.

“Look, this is a passionate sport, I love the passion. You've got two cars, you're fighting for a world championship, and two cars get taken out in the first corner.

“It's easy to think that it's somebody else's fault sometimes and you react with passion. I think he probably did that to Sky TV – the heat of the moment and the emotion. But I've known Zak a really long time. He's a racer. We're all racers and we sorted it out afterwards.”

Wheatley also had a word of advice for McLaren about the three-horse title tace their drivers are locked in, adding: “You can never write Max Verstappen off. Red Bull is a class racing team. Max Verstappen is perhaps the best driver in the world. The fact that they've found some performance in the car, I think they're probably kicking themselves that they didn't find it sooner.

“But I'm not surprised that they've been able to do that. In the years that I worked there, quite often there was a big turnaround between Friday night and Saturday in terms of performance. If I was McLaren, I'd be looking in my rear-view mirrors.”

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