Norris: No points should have been awarded for safety car laps

Lando Norris says F1 drivers did not do enough on Sunday at Spa to earn championship points, insisting the field's laps behind the safety car were not a race.

After horrendous conditions scraped its initial kick off, the Belgian Grand Prix was restarted late in the day, only for the 20-car procession to be led back into the pitlane by the safety car after just three laps as the rain failed to relent.

However, per F1's sporting regulations, the three laps were enough to confer an official status to the truncated event, with half-points distributed to the top ten, a running order determined the day before in qualifying.

But Norris, who qualified P10 but lined up 14th after receiving a grid penalty for a gearbox change following his massive crash in Saturday's shootout, felt that the laps behind the safety car were simply unworthy of points.

"I don’t think any points should be awarded for today," he said. "I think for how little we did today, X amount of racing laps, we go out and we race for X amount of the race, but to drive around behind the safety car and then for people to get points…

"Maybe I’d be saying the opposite if I was first and I’d got a good amount of points, I don’t know,” he added.

"I don’t feel like – even though it’s benefitted us today as Daniel got a good amount of points comparing to Ferrari – I don’t feel it’s deserved race for points because it’s not a race at the end of the day."

• Read also: Two-lap run behind safety car was 'all money scenario' - Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton called the race a "farce" and pointed to financial reasons for F1's insistence on qualifying the event as an official race by completing the minimum amount of laps – albeit behind the safety car – required by the regulations.

While Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel was on the same page as Norris and Hamilton.

"It’s a bit of a joke, no? " said the German. "If you want to get a reward for qualifying, you should get points for qualifying. What did we do today [to earn the points]? I don’t know."

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