Gasly says contact with Alonso set up collision with Norris

Pierre Gasly says damage sustained during a contact with Fernando Alonso in Sunday's Miami GP set up his lap 39 collision with Lando Norris.

Gasly had run wide at Turn 7, which allowed Haas' Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen to overtake the AlphaTauri driver.

But as Gasly collected himself and rejoined the track, Norris engaged in passing the slow-moving Frenchman on the left only for the McLaren's right-rear wheel to clip the front-left of the AlphaTauri, which sent the Briton into the wall.

However, after the race, Gasly explained that the sequence of events had actually started a lap earlier when Alonso had lunged down the inside of Gasly at Turn 1 and made contact with the latter, breaking an element of his right-rear suspension.

"We tried to do one more lap to see if we could continue, and the car was too damaged, I could not even stay on-track or turn left anymore," Gasly explained.

"Then on our last lap, on our way back to the pits, I was going slow after Turn 7, and yeah, all the cars passed. I was trying to turn right to give room, and Norris came and clipped my front-left tyre.

"I was trying to give room. I could have probably gone to the left, I was turning right, you guys can check the onboards. I don’t know where I could have gone."

• Read also: No hard feelings towards 'valuable friend' Vettel, says Schumacher

Norris, who suffered in Miami his first retirement of the season, felt that he had just been "unlucky".

"It kinks right and the track goes this way, and he's just kind of coming straight across it," Norris said.

"If it's because of the damage, I don't know what I should do, drive right next to the wall and hope for the best or something. So, just unlucky, I guess."

As for Alonso, who had initiated the fracas, the Alpine driver was hit with a five-second penalty for causing a collision with Gasly. But the Spaniard owned up to his mistake.

"I was very optimistic on the move with him," he said. "I had the penalty, five seconds, which I deserve, it was my mistake, I braked too late.

"We were ready to give back the position, but he was on the pitstop at that time, so I have to pay those five seconds."

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