Taking a step back from the immediacy of the drama, the bigger concern may be what it says about Norris and his state of mind - and raise questions as to what to do about it.
This has not been an easy season for Norris so far. He was very much McLaren's leading driver last year. He was the one who took a semblance of a title fight to Verstappen in the closing stages of the season.
In the expectation that McLaren would continue their strong form in the second half of last year into this, Norris was the championship favourite going into the season.
Instead, the form between the two McLaren drivers has switched. Piastri has been the more convincing. He has five wins to Norris' two. He is ahead 8-4 on their qualifying head-to-head. And Norris has been making mistakes, particularly in qualifying.
Norris has been saying all year that a lack of feel from the front axle of the car has been affecting his ability to predict its behaviour when taking it to the limit on one lap.
In Canada, McLaren introduced a small tweak to the suspension geometry, around where the upper wishbone meets the front wheel, in an attempt increase feel. Stella said there were "no downsides from Lando's point of view", and Norris ran it all weekend. Piastri felt he didn't need it and continued with the original specification.
Norris was probably the quicker McLaren driver in Montreal - he did a stunning lap on used tyres to progress beyond the first part of qualifying. But he again over-drove when it mattered, making mistakes on both of his laps in the final session, and ending up seventh on the grid.
Stella said after qualifying that Norris had "just tried too hard", and pointed out that on his final lap he was on target for pole before brushing the wall at Turn Seven.
"The speed is there," Stella said on Saturday evening. "We just have to polish the fact that sometimes you sort of have to accept that you can't always go 100%, especially when a little mistake can be so costly."
Stella has emphasised that McLaren have been working with Norris on his difficulties this year.
After the race, he was asked what more they could do to get him into the right headspace, if that was indeed the problem. But he said he did not see a connection between Norris' wider issues and the specifics of the collision in Canada.
"At the moment I wouldn't say that that's the reason why there was a misjudgment today," Stella said. "I think this is too long a shot in terms of correlating these two events.
"Definitely there will be good conversations, but they will happen once we are all rested and calm.
"Lando himself will have to show his character to overcome this kind of episode, make sure that he only takes the learnings, he only takes what will make him a stronger driver."