Stella Calls for “Common Sense” After Colapinto Starts Another Social Media Storm

Andrea Stella calls for common sense from F1 drivers after Franco Colapinto wiped out Alpine teammate and Lando Norris at the Azerbaijan GP.

A disappointed McLaren's Norris called for a race ban for drivers causing incidents like in F1 Azerbaijan GP , which his rivals did not agree readily . Even team boss Stella did not readily align with the thought, but raised the common sense topic from experienced drivers.

He thought circuits like Baku always throw challenges like what happened at Turn 1. It is a common theme at restarts which drivers are aware and mindful of, which is why he felt whether Colapinto or anyone else, should have applied common sense in tackling tricky conditions.

Stella Fears Briatore Penalty will be Harsher for Colapinto

In terms of the penalty, he put full faith in the FIA stewards to handle the topic and didn't know if repercussions from Alpine F1 chief Flavio Briatore would be harsher or the penalty for Colapinto. The stewards handed him a 5-place grid drop, but the Italian was certainly harsher in the press release.

He said there would be consequences which raised social media theories about dropping Colapinto from racing in Malaysia – something he can do like he did with Jack Doohan previously. "Well, look, it's a complex matter," said Stella to the media, when asked his view on the topic.

"I guess this is being reviewed by the stewards as we speak pretty much. I'm sure it will be reviewed by Flavio as well. I'm not sure which one is going to be harsher for whoever caused the problem. I think independently of the discussion that you can have because of the penalty.

Stella Recalls How Tricky Baku Circuit Usually Is

"I think when you drive a Formula 1 and you are approaching corner one in Baku and you have seen so many videos of the past, you just should be capitalising on this experience that you should be having as a Formula 1 driver because there's consequence in this case which I sure I'm sure is a shame for Alpine, for both drivers and there's a shame for and there's a penalty for other drivers.

"So I think definitely the penalty should take into account that there's some circuits in which you have to use extra prudency and there's an full history of problems that happened like this especially in a street circuit where there's no way to use the run off area to somehow mitigate the consequences of somebody running onto you.

"So we trust the stewards, their approach but above all we should trust the drivers that they apply a certain degree of just common sense, I would say while driving," summed up Stella, as social media furor kicked-off against Norris on social media, following the Brit's statement.

It forced Alpine to release a statement on Sunday afternoon to ease the tensions. Colapinto was already apologetic about the incident post-race, while Pierre Gasly accepted it but needed a day to cool off, considering the huge points loss for the F1 team in the battle against Racing Bulls.