Norris: ‘Unfair’ yellow flag plight in Q1 ‘ruined’ Baku weekend

All things considered, Lando Norris was satisfied with his fourth-place finish in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but the McLaren driver remained convinced that the yellow flag that had left him lingering in Q1 in qualifying had “ruined” his weekend.

Norris delivered a spirited drive from 15th on the grid to score 13 points that slightly reduced his deficit in F1’s Drivers’ standings to championship leader Max Verstappen.

The Briton’s race featured a crucial moment when he was able to fend off Red Bull’s Sergio Perez for two laps which allowed his McLaren teammate and future race winner Oscar Piastri to distance himself from the Mexican and prevent a costly undercut.

But while satisfied with his result and support role, Norris was also left to contemplate what could have been had he been able to complete his final flyer in Q1 on Saturday unhampered by a yellow flag in Baku’s final sector that many believed was not justified.

The caution was triggered by Esteban Ocon’s slow moving Alpine. The Frenchman was nursing his car back to the pits after hitting the wall in the final sector.

Initially covered by a white flag, the sector between Turns 16 and 17 briefly turned to yellow, which compelled Norris to lift ahead of reaching the area, only for the sector to revert to white by the time the Briton had caught up with Ocon.

• Read also: McLaren sees 50% of Piastri’s Baku win shared with Norris

After the session, there were questions about whether it had been necessary for Norris to lift, or whether the McLaren driver running wide on the exit of Turn 16 had been the real reason fot aborting his lap.

After Sunday’s race, Norris set the record straight about the situation and its likely costly consequences on his result on race day.

“This was one of the most unfair things that I think has happened in a long time,” Norris told the media.

“You don’t have to be a scientist to work that out. I don’t know – this is not for me to decide, it’s not for me to say.

"Everyone was talking about the white flag and all this nonsense. What they can’t see is my dash, which had big yellow lights on.

"So a lot of people are talking nonsense and stuff like that. But I had to lift and that took away my chances.

“It wasn’t fair, and for it to ruin my whole weekend… I know I got a fourth today, and that’s not bad, but it could have been better.

“Oscar showed what was possible today, so it was unfair. There was no yellow the whole lap, and they put a yellow out just as I came past.”

Norris was adamant that his mistake at Turn 16 would not have prevented him from improving his lap time and making the Q2 cut.

“Did I go off the track just before it? Yes. Would I still easily have got into the top 15? Yes,” he said.

“There are a lot of people who thought that that ruined my lap. I was still easily in, even with my off-track.

“I only lost a couple of tenths, and I still easily would have been in so, yeah, people can say what they want.

“I find a lot of it funny, but this was out of my control, and it was something that was unfair, and it cost me a good amount of points in the championship today, and ruined my weekend.

“So it’s disappointing, especially because of how good the car was today. I’m the guy who’s thinking of what could have been, not how we did today, necessarily. But I’m very happy with today, still.”

On Saturday, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella was anything but happy with how race control had managed the situation out on track, suggesting that at no point was a yellow caution justified.

The Italian took the matter up with the FIA.

“We talked to the FIA,” he said. “We tried to understand the point of view as to why the white flag became yellow when Lando went through the high-speed section.

“We understand that, in the opinion of the local marshal, it was a yellow flag because of the speed differential between the two cars.

“Here it really goes in the interpretation of what is safe and what is not safe.

“We have never been critical of the FIA in relation to this episode. We were constructive in our conversation.

“We said, like, maybe we should judge together with the drivers whether that’s a white flag or a yellow flag because it’s not in the area of mathematics – it is in the area of understanding or perceiving what is danger.

“So the conversation happened. It was constructive. It was very costly for us that it was a yellow flag. We will assess in the future whether this case should have deserved either of the two flags.”

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