Grosjean apologises to McLaren after misreading Zak Brown's praise of Norris as attack on Piastri

Romain Grosjean issued a public apology to McLaren and team principal Zak Brown on Sunday evening after misrepresenting Brown’s comments during Canal+ live coverage of the Spanish Grand Prix at the Madring in Madrid. The former Haas driver had incorrectly characterised Brown’s praise of Lando Norris as a damaging attack on Oscar Piastri’s confidence.

Grosjean’s on-air remarks were pointed. “I saw a statement from Zak Brown about Lando Norris’ lap, he cut Oscar Piastri to pieces with a pair of scissors and a chainsaw right there,” he told Canal+ viewers after Norris had taken pole position the previous day. “If Piastri had any morale left, he doesn’t have any anymore.”

The problem was that Brown had said no such thing. The McLaren boss had in fact been effusive about Norris’s pole lap during a post-qualifying interview on F1 TV — an interview Grosjean himself had been present for, alongside Juan Pablo Montoya and Jolyon Palmer. “The whole lap was amazing and Lando’s just getting better and better and better,” Brown had said. “When you see a lap like that put down, you just go, ‘he’s a world champion.’” Asked about the gap between his two drivers, Brown added that Norris had been on his “A-plus game” and that Piastri had been “right there with him all weekend” before simply missing out on that final extra lap.

Grosjean’s Canal+ comments spread quickly on social media, prompting him to set the record straight the same evening. “Today, I made a comment on Canal+ regarding Zak Brown’s comments about Oscar Piastri during an interview yesterday on F1 TV, which I was part of,” he wrote. “I completely misunderstood his words and want to apologise for that.”

The episode is an awkward one for Grosjean given that he was physically present during the original interview and still drew the wrong conclusion from it. McLaren, meanwhile, head into the remainder of the European season with both drivers having shown strong pace in Spain, even if Norris’s pole lap underlined the reigning world champion’s current edge over his team-mate.