McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella said the “FIA should consider very seriously if we want fairness to be part of going racing in Formula 1 after Lando Norris was handed a stop/go penalty in the Qatar Grand Prix.
Norris was chasing down race leader Max Verstappen for the lead of the Qatar GP when he failed to lift through yellow flags at Turn 1 of the Lusail International Circuit.
The stewards took a dim view of Norris’ infringement and handed him a 10-second stop-and-go penalty.
Crucially for Norris, this was issued shortly after a safety car restart and with the pack bunched up, he was demoted to the back of the 15 remaining runners, forcing him to fight through and salvage a point.
Stella saw no issue with Norris’ being punished, but he questioned the severity.
“I think the penalty was deserved,” he said.
“Which leads us then to two important requirements. One is proportion and the second one is specificity. I think the application of the penalty lacks both requirements.
“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 into the proportion. The penalty needs to be commensurate, it needs to be proportioned to the severity of the infringement.
“It’s interesting that the FIA themselves were going on and off with the yellow flag and at some stage the yellow flag was even removed.
“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 F1.”
McLaren expects FIA to review severity of Lando Norris punishment
Stella argued that FIA F1 race stewards applied a “simplistic” approach to penalising Norris in Qatar.
Moreover, he called for a review of how severe certain punishments handed out in races are, “otherwise, the consequences may go out of control.”
The McLaren team boss added that “it looks like somewhere there must be a book with a lot of dust on the cover that was kind of taken out, ‘let me see what it says, I apply this.’
“[It] seems a little too simplistic.”
Stella expects that the governing body will look into the application of Norris’ stop-and-go penalty, but when asked to call into question the recently appointed F1 Race Director Rui Marques, he refused to judge.
“We expect that this case of applying such a severe penalty to that case will be reviewed by the FIA,” Stella explained.
“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.”
READ MORE – Lando Norris admits he ‘f***ed up’ with yellow flag violation in F1 Qatar GP
