Wheatley: Brown sent me an apology, apologized personally to Hulkenberg

Norris and Piastri raced into Turn 1 at the start of the Sprint Race, and while the Briton went late on the brakes and ran wide, the Australian attempted to switch back and take second place, but Hulkenberg, who started from fourth, was there fighting a fast-starting Fernando Alonso.

As a result, the German tapped Piastri and sent him crashing into Norris as both McLaren teammates were out on the spot. Hulkenberg suffered from a damaged front wing, but his Sprint was effectively over as he finished down in 13th, while Alonso retired as well.

Brown was livid and in the heat of the moment said: "Clearly Nico Hulkenberg drove into Oscar, and he had no business being where he was."

However, after calming down and watching a replay of the incident, Brown retracted his statement regarding Hulkenberg, and Sauber's Wheatley revealed an apology was delivered.

"“Zak sent me an apology really quickly afterwards. He apologized personally to Nico," Wheatley said. “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," Wheatley concluded.

Careful revision of the crash, which Formula 1 stewards rightfully deemed as a racing incident, shows that Piastri was probably more to blame, as he should've anticipated the presence of another car on his left, especially since it was on Lap 1. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)