Lando Norris took the blame on himself for the F1 Qatar GP scene as he and Andrea Stella accepted the penalty, but the team boss felt it was slightly on the harsher side.
It was going well at one stage for McLaren in F1 Qatar GP, especially after the start when Norris cleared George Russell to slot in second. He was on the tail of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen all through the first stint, applying as much pressure he could to force the Dutchman into a mistake.
It didn’t come and the safety car plus pit stops too didn’t change much. At one re-start, it looked likely that Norris could force his way into the lead but Verstappen managed to keep him off. At the same time, the Dutchman and Red Bull filed a complaint against the Brit for failing to slow under double yellow.
And it was correct observation as Norris was handed a 10s stop and go penalty – one of the harshest penalties. That pretty much dropped him to the back of the field but he managed to climb back up to 10th and score an extra point for the fastest lap, which was crucial for their title fight.
Norris was downbeat after the race while accepting his mistake. He was fine with the penalty as well unlike the fans and pundits. Team boss Stella too accepted the mistake the Brit committed, but felt the penalty was on the harsher side and something that hasn’t been applied for some time now.
He expects review from the FIA, who explained that yellow and double yellow scene is uncompromising, especially on the side of safety, which is why the harshest of penalties was applied. McLaren remained on top but the lead to Ferrari is trimmed to 21 now, with one grand prix remaining.
Oscar Piastri’s third place finish and Carlos Sainz’s sixth place helped McLaren in the end, despite Charles Leclerc finishing second and Norris in 10th. There was not much the Australian could have done differently, even related to strategy where Stella defended their call of stopping him when he did.
The stop cost him a place to Leclerc after the Australian had recovered the track position, having lost it in the opening stint. Stella noted that they were thinking to pit both the drivers, considering the severity of the degradation and potential chance of punctures, which hampered others.
Mistake –
Norris: “Disappointed, of course. I’ve let the team down. The team gave me a great car today. Easily the quickest out there. And I f****d it up. I don’t know what I did wrong. I’m not an idiot. If there’s a yellow flag, I know I need to slow down. That’s rule number one you learn in go karts, but for some reason, I didn’t do that today because I’ve not seen it, or I’ve missed it or something, so I have to take it on the chin they think I’ve done something wrong so I must have done something wrong and I can only apologise for the rest of the year to the team. I didn’t give up until the end, we were quick I did my best I could. I’m disappointed to score only two points for the quickest car I’ve ever seen.”
Penalty –
Norris: “No, it was fair. If I did what they said I did wrong, then good on them for giving me the quick penalty.”
Stella: “We checked all the data. Lando enters the sector when the yellow flag is displayed. But fair enough, the requirement is very clear. When there’s a yellow sector, you are required to slow down, and this is the responsibility of the driver. So I think the penalty was deserved in that case, which leads us to two important requirements that we all – I am sure – would like to know that are applied, when it is about giving a penalty. It is two important concepts, one is proportion and the second is specificity. I think the application of the penalty lacks both requirements. The specificity has to do with, what case are we actually considering? Is there an immediate danger for somebody? Is there a crash scene? Like the specificity of the incident in which the infringement was committed. The specificity leads to the proportion. The penalty needs to be commensurate, it needs to be proportioned to the severity of the infringement.
“Interestingly, the FIA themselves were going on and off with the yellow flag, and at some stage, the yellow flag was even removed, right? From a specificity point of view, how severe is the situation? So I think I’m here acknowledging that checking the data, Lando did not slow down, but the lack of any specificity and proportion is very concerning and is also a factor that could have a decisive impact on the championship quest. It’s definitely material that the FIA should consider very seriously if we want fairness to be part of the going racing in Formula 1. It is an important business, there is huge commitment from every team, huge commitment from all the parties. And we need to make sure that the business is run in a way that some fundamental element of proportion and specificity are guaranteed when a penalty is applied. Otherwise the consequences may go out of control. To me it looks like somewhere there must be a book with a lot of dust on the cover that was taken out, ‘let me see what is said, I apply this’.
“It seems a little simplistic. We expect that this case of applying such a severe penalty to that case will be reviewed by the FIA. And there is certainly, in our opinion, material for improvement. Once the FIA has taken this opportunity of opening a review of their operations and application of the penalty, as to the rest, we don’t want to comment. We trust the FIA in terms of their decisions, in terms of… When you put somebody in a certain role, that’s the job of the FIA. Today, for us, we have expressed that we expect this case to be reviewed, but we don’t want to enter with any comment in changes of racing director. We don’t have the elements to judge, so we just trust the institution that is there to do this kind of job.”
Verstappen complaint, last race now –
Norris: “Good on him. It is what everyone does. Happy for him. [I’ll take Abu Dhabi] in the same as we were every other weekend, the team gave me the best car out there today. I’m very happy and thankful for them to do so. I got a good start, I got past George. I thought George would be our biggest competitor today and that wasn’t the case. Max was and he did an incredible job. We go in the same as every weekend, wanting to win, wanting to be the best, wanting to be the fastest. I just need to not be an idiot and do what I did. It’s a massive opportunity lost and I’ve disappointed the whole team. The only thing I care about is my team.”
Race, strategy –
Piastri: “I mean, yes, but that’s how racing goes sometimes, unfortunately. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. I feel like we’ve had that happen quite a few times this year, but we’ve had our fair share of luck as well. So I think the pace was decent, just not quite strong enough in the right places on the track, which made trying to get close pretty tough. Because I think once I had some clean air, the pace was strong. Yeah, I think, you know, fighting for the win, given where I started and how the first part of the race panned out was always going to be a challenge, but I’m pretty happy to end up on the podium. I think the track this is very different to last year in terms of the grip level.
“I think our car in certain conditions is quite different to last year as well, and I feel like some of our strengths that we had last year are not really strengths anymore because everybody else has caught up to us and I feel like some of our weaknesses are not really our weaknesses either, and I feel like it’s a much more well-rounded car. But I think also maybe the grip level has taken away some of our strengths that we’ve had in the past here. I mean, I always expected it to be tight. I didn’t expect it to be necessarily as, you know… I think apart from Max last year, we were very competitive here. But I always thought it was going to be pretty tough between the top four teams.”
Strategy –
Stella: “The pit stop with Oscar…well, actually we considered stopping with both cars because clearly something was going on with the tyres. We have seen this already in Silverstone, we have seen this already, I think, it might have been Qatar last year. When you fail tyres for what looks like a structural failure, it can be quite deterministic and punctual, like it has achieved a certain number of cycles the tyre goes, so staying out even one or two laps more could be extremely dangerous. So, for us, it was very clear that, it was time to pit and go on to a new set.
“The timing of the safety car itself, sometimes it helps you, sometimes it doesn’t help you, but I think in this case, there was the integrity of the car and there was also a safety consideration to be made, and definitely we took the opportunity to stop Oscar, like I said, it is impossible to bring the safety car as a variable into these equations, we are happy with our decisions and this time it cost us a second place finish but this doesn’t affect the validity of the decision made.”
Staying with McLaren, the team announced Ryo Hirakawa to be driving in FP1 of Abu Dhabi GP in Piastri’s car to fulfil the FIA rookie driver requirement. This will be the Japanese driver’s first time in a competitive weekend after having undertaken private testing in the older cars.
Hirakawa had joined McLaren in 2023 and also races full-time in WEC for Toyota. IndyCar racer Pato O’Ward, meanwhile, will be back in action during the one-day test in Abu Dhabi. Having completed his FP1 outing in Mexico, the Mexican will now be part of the Young Drivers’ test.
Here’s penalty to Lando Norris: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-qatar-grand-prix-the-yellow-flags-moment-that-earned-norris-a-10-second-stop-go-penalty.1817271661221587226
Here’s re-start fight: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-qatar-grand-prix-verstappen-fends-off-norris-for-the-lead-on-the-safety-car-restart.1817259576819308959
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-qatar-grand-prix-verstappen-and-norris-jump-russell-on-the-race-start-as-two-cars-crash-out.1817255595215847572
Here’s stewards explaining Norris penalty: https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2024%20Qatar%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20Infringement%20-%20Car%204%20-%20Failing%20to%20slow%20under%20double%20waved%20yellow%20flags.pdf
Here’s Piastri getting a warning: https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2024%20Qatar%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20Infringement%20-%20Car%2081%20-%20Pit%20entry%20incident%20(reconnaissance%20laps).pdf
Here’s FIA on their decisions
Here’s how F1 Qatar GP panned out
Here’s link to a F1 Discord channel, join in to interact