MCLAREN boss Zak Brown has personally apologised to Formula One rival Nico Hulkenberg after blasting him for “amateur-hour” driving during the US Grand Prix sprint.
Hulkenberg was involved in a multi-car crash during the sprint event on Saturday which saw him hit Oscar Piastri at Turn 1 of the opening lap.
Championship leader Piastri then in turn hit McLaren team-mate Lando Norris, seeing both drivers’ race come to a premature end.
Brown slammed the incident on Sky Sports, saying: “That was terrible. Neither of our drivers are to blame there.
“That’s some amateur-hour driving by some drivers up there at the front, (they) wacked out two guys.
“I want to see the replay again but clearly Nico Hulkenberg drove into Oscar and he had no business being where he was, he went into his left-rear tyre.
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“It looks like it was just limited to suspension damage, so hopefully it’s relatively easy to fix.”
However, when he calmed down and assessed the incident, Brown retracted his earlier comments and admitted he was wrong to criticise the German driver for a racing incident.
Sauber team boss Jonathan Wheatley later revealed that Brown personally apologised to Hulkenberg over the outburst.
Wheatley said: “Zak sent me an apology really quickly afterwards. He apologised personally to Nico.
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“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.”
Hulkenberg, who qualified fourth for the sprint, did not see his race end from the collision but lost the opportunity for points and eventually finished 13th.
The feature race the following day was won by Max Verstappen ahead of Norris in second and Piastri in fourth.
Hulkenberg also redeemed himself by scoring four points with a P8 finish in Austin, Texas.
