'Blind' Mazepin suffered near miss with Hamilton

Nikita Mazepin offered to apologize to Lewis Hamilton after he nearly collided with the Mercedes driver in the first half of the Turkish Grand Prix due to poor visibility.

Although last Sunday's round of racing at Istanbul Park was free of any major incidents, a damp track and murky conditions challenged drivers throughout.

Limited visibility due to lingering spray prevailed in the first half of the race, which led to a dodgy situation for Mazepin on lap 28 when he inadvertently shut the door on Hamilton at Turn 11, oblivious of the Briton's presence.

"First of all, extremely sorry to Lewis," said the Russian after the race, quoted by Motorsport.com.

"I’ve been complaining to the team that I can’t see anything with the mirrors, and I do need proper guidance in my ears on where the other cars are, because the spray – and Turkey isn’t exactly the cleanest spray that we have, so it flies and dries out – so I was driving blind.

"When you get so many cars overtaking you, lapping you actually not once, but even twice, it was just a disaster. I’m happy that we managed to get away, but I’ll see Lewis and I’ll apologise to him."

Mazepin's comments were echoed by McLaren's Lando Norris who admitted to having endured a scary opening lap because of the amount of spray.

"The laps to the grid I basically couldn’t see a thing," Norris said.

"I was quite scared actually how bad it was and even on the first lap, but I think the first lap I managed to get a gap and control it very well from then on.

"I think it’s because the water sits on the surface quite a bit. And it obviously didn’t dry so there’s always that bit of water and I think it’s not like down in the cracks of it."

• Read also: F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2021 Turkish GP

Norris said however that the issue at Istanbul Park was not worse than it is other tracks on the F1 calendar.

"It’s terrible at other tracks, probably every other track you go to," he said. "It’s just stayed bad for a little bit longer [here].

"It was more like an oily water rather than just water so it became like a bit more blurry and stuff as well as much as water going into the visor."

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter