"People make mistakes in life" - Lando Norris does not think careers 'should just be ended' over racist slurs after Red Bull's firing of Juri Vips

McLaren driver Lando Norris believes Red Bull firing Juri Vips may have been an overly harsh consequence for the young Estonian driver. The 21-year-old driver was suspended after allegedly making a racist comment on a live video game stream.

Admitting that a single and potentially "genuine" mistake may not necessarily warrant ending a driver's career, Norris addressed the issue at the drivers' press conference ahead of the 2022 F1 British Grand Prix. He said:

“I do see that just words do make a big difference. And the fact of how big something like this has become over the last few days, I think that already has a big impact. But I don’t think you can ask us what a deserved punishment is for someone that says something like that. You know, if it’s a genuine mistake, it’s hard to know that what that kind of punishment is and what’s deserved and what’s not.”

“People make mistakes in life. And careers, I don’t think, should just be ended because of something like that. I think you should be able to get forgiven and get opportunities other times and so on. But yeah, it’s tough whether that kind of line is ever drawn at times. So yeah, I’m not too sure. But it’s not accepted. I don’t think we’re not doing anything.”

“I think we are doing quite a bit as a sport and as a community. And it’s hard to do certain actions. You know, if I asked you what single thing can we just go out and do, on top of driving, on top of doing everything else that we do, it’s not a not an easy thing. We do a lot I think. We speak up about it, we say these things, we’re talking about it now. I think already things like this have a good impact on everything. So we’ll continue to do that and have the best impact we can.”

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Lando Norris is "happy to be back" in England for his home race

Lando Norris, who has not had the best of luck so far this season, is certainly optimistic about heading to his home race at Silverstone this weekend.

Admitting that he "loved" the GP last year, the young Briton said:

“Lovely to be back here, back at home. Already see a lot of the fans come into the circuit today and obviously, especially for tomorrow. So yeah, just happy to be back. It’s a very enjoyable weekend, and I loved it last year from start to finish.”

Lando Norris has taken to social media to share his excitement over returning home all week, setting himself up for a positive run this weekend.