Pierre Gasly and Lando Norris have refused to pass the blame to each other in the wake of their collision in Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix.

Gasly’s afternoon had been derailed a couple of laps beforehand after being hit up the rear by Fernando Alonso into Turn 1, damaging the right front side of his car and subsequently dropping him down through the order as he crawled back to the pits.

But as Gasly attempted to move out of the way on the exit of Turn 7, the Frenchman slightly jinked across to the left, colliding with Norris and putting both out of the race.

Shortly after the race, Gasly revealed to MotorLAT and other selected media outlets in the press pen that he couldn’t steer when driving back to the pits.

“We tried to do one more lap to see if we could continue, (but) the car was too damaged I couldn’t steer anymore, and then on our last lap back to the pits, (I) was going slow after Turn 7 and all the cars past, and I was trying to turn right to give room, and then Norris came and hit my right front tyre.”

“I was so slow; I was trying to move the car to the right as much as I could so some guys could pass me by, and in the end, at Turn 8, he was turning right, and he hit me, and everything was quite fast I was trying to keep it clean for everyone, he came close to hit me on the front left. I was trying to give room; he could have gone to the left. I was bearing right; I don’t know where I could have gone, and I was slow trying to get back to the pits, and it was really unfortunate for him because it’s not the way you want to finish the race.”

Norris sympathised with Gasly’s woes and didn’t wish to blame him for the incident despite the Brit commenting that he should have got out of the way if he was returning to the pits.

“The first thing I need to do is speak to him to understand what was happening. He obviously went off the track he had a lot of damage and so on. For my opinion, he drifted across to the left quite a bit, the track kind of kinks to the right, and he wasn’t turning right, so if he was going to box because I heard from someone he was going to pit, he should be getting out of my way a lot more then he did so it’s tough.”

“If he was struggling to control the car, it’s life I am unlucky it happens in races sometimes but if it wasn’t that bad he shouldn’t have been drifting to the track like he was doing, bit like looking in his right mirror and wasn’t looking where I was on his left so I am not sure I don’t want to blame him I just need to speak to him. He was just unlucky. Just on the onboard, he kinks right, and the track goes this way and he’s kind of coming straight across it; if it’s because of the damage, it’s fine.