McLaren team boss demands explanation from FIA after Lando Norris’ Q1 disaster

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has called out the FIA ​​over the yellow flags during the first qualifying session that led to Lando Norris’s retirement in Q1 of qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The British driver’s chances of closing in on Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship have been severely damaged by the incident and he will start from 17th place on Sunday.

Norris was forced to abort his final lap after colliding with the slow-moving Alpine of Esteban Ocon on the exit of Turn 16. With four minutes to go in Q1, he was in 18th place with a time of 1:43.609, just ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri. Norris returned to the track over two minutes behind, with Piastri hot on his heels.

As Norris prepared for his out lap, Esteban Ocon hit the wall at Turn 4, blowing a tyre and was instructed to continue. Meanwhile, Norris was warned of debris and yellow flags were briefly shown as Ocon limped back to the pits.

On his fastest lap, Norris was eight tenths clear but ran wide at Turn 16 when a yellow flag was shown for Ocon’s slow car. Ocon slowed to let Norris past but Norris eased off, believing he was in a yellow flag zone, and aborted his lap. Norris’ lap was not deleted despite his gap, meaning he could have kept his time.

According to Stella, it was not Norris’ wide run at Turn 16 that caused his early exit from qualifying, but the “unnecessary” yellow flag. He told Sky Sports F1:

“The most bitter thing is that the other car will be at the back of the grid tomorrow. We will do our best to get back into the points and keep the impact as minimal as possible. But for Lando, of course, it was a very unfortunate moment today.”

“We are now discussing with the FIA ​​why a yellow flag was shown at that time, which was extremely costly.”

“The team didn’t say it because it was shown at the last minute. We’ve checked it now in our tools and it is indeed shown as yellow. So we’ve spoken to the FIA ​​about why that happened. The yellow flag is not necessary if a car is just slow and not on a flying lap.”

“I am sure that everyone did their best. This time there was a situation that ideally and in my opinion also according to the regulations should not have happened. We paid the price for it, but we are not giving up.

“We’ll keep going and do our best tomorrow to get some good points.”