[nytimes] Lando Norris’ Qatar penalty and safety car timing explained by FIA
[nytimes] Lando Norris’ Qatar penalty and safety car timing explained by FIA
Summary: The FIA defended Lando Norris's 10-second stop-and-go penalty at the Qatar Grand Prix for failing to slow under double-waved yellow flags, citing safety protocols. McLaren criticized the severity, as Norris dropped from second to last before recovering to 10th. The FIA also explained the delayed safety car deployment, noting initial debris posed minimal risk until worsened by a collision. Safety procedures, including a swap of malfunctioning safety cars, are under review. The race director’s expanded workload and governance issues added to scrutiny.
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The safety car / red flag timings have been atrocious for years at this point. It’s like the control team aren’t actually watching the main stream and are only using shitty cctv around the circuit or something.
Immediately after seeing the mirror in the middle of the main straight which is the main overtaking part of this track I called out they need a safety car for a marshal to get on and retrieve it… but they didn’t. Then bottas hit it and spread debris everywhere, they still didn’t safety car to sweep it all up. Then Hamilton and sainz got a puncture and it will took them like 2 mins to deploy the SC….
I feel like maybe f1 could benefit from some sort of “code 60” like zone that NLS and N24 have. A mandatory pit limit area of the track, allows the race to continue for a few mins while a marshal is on track, but keeps them safe still. That way you don’t have a full neutralisation like a full SC, but it’s much safer than a VSC for a person to climb over the barriers to retrieve debris.
Yeah it was ridiculous. It was off the racing line but at the end part of a DRS straight, so there would be many drivers going off the line to overtake.
I thought the Norris penalty was a bit harsh. 10 seconds would be fine. Stop & go was extreme.
They could have even just mandated that everyone go through the pits for a lap