An incident involving Simon Pagenaud and Lando Norris during Saturday’s IndyCar iRacing Challenge overshadowed the race at a virtual Indianapolis and stirred debate in the motorspo꧅rt community.

Reigning Indianapolis 500 champi♔on Pagenaud appeared to deliberately slow leav💎ing race-leader Norris nowhere to go as the McLaren driver hit the back of Pagenaud.

Just before the clash, Pagenaud said: “Oh♐, I was pitting, I didn’t mean to…”

It came a few laps after Pagenaud had been inadvertently hit by Graham🦂 Rahal as Norris overtook the latter to move into the lead at♎ the virtual Brickyard.

Norris revealed Pagenaud had apologised to him for the incident but claimed the Frenchman was “salty” 🍌fo꧟r not wanting a non-IndyCar driver to win the event.

But footage from Pagenaud’s live stream which e💝merged after the race had finished changed the complexion of the collision and left fans and the wider motorsport community calling into question Pagenaud’s sportsmanship - or perhaps lack of it.

“We take Lando 🔴out, let’s do it,” were the words uttered by Pagenaudꦬ which stirred great debate and split opinion about the ethics of the move.

Debating the inc💙ident with🧜 Red Bull’s Max Verstappen having witnessed Pagenaud’s stream for the first time, Norris said: “Even his spotter says ‘let’s friction do this’. Yeah, bold strategy mate.

“This is amazing. I even said it before, ‘Pagenaud’s about to take me out’, and my spotter was like, yeah we’ll see about that. Two seconds later, I’m flippin𝓀g around.”

Analysing the clash ಌfurther, Norris adds: “Ah he’s lifting. He’s such a liar (laughter).

“He’s s🥂uch a class act. ꦛEven his spotter is laughing away.”

Verstappen echoed Norris’ verdict aওnd described the incident as the “the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”

In a tweet, McLaren te♈am boss Zak Brown said t🤡he behaviour was “not what you expect from a champion.”

Watch the video below and make up your own mind about the incident. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Wow...

— WTF1 (@wtf1official)