by VALERIO BARRETTA
Track limits, Norris penalized but “safe”
Just as Lando Norris was hit by Max Verstappen at Turn 3 at the Red Bull Ring and was returning with three wheels to the pits, F1 graphics confirmed that the British driver had also been given a five-second penalty for overtaking the grid four times track limits during the Austrian Grand Prix.
To add insult to injury, one might think, also because Norris (once back in the pits) had to retire and It was initially believed that he had not served his penalty: a scenario for which he would have “paid the price” at Silverstone, because as stated in the sporting regulations in article 54.3, if a driver cannot serve the penalty in the race he is punished with grid positions in the following Grand Prix.
McLaren’s cunning and Norris’s fortune
Despite the excitement of the moment, McLaren noticed the penalty from the stewards, also because Norris had gone very wide shortly before in an attempt to overtake Verstappen when he had already used up his bonuses. The Woking team was very clear-headed in making Norris return to the pits and not touching the car in the first five seconds. It was a useless “finesse”, because Norris had still covered 90% of the Grand Prix laps (64 out of 71), the limit that separates the classified from the retired: therefore in the official classification he appears as 20th, with the penalty already “served”, and not as DNF. McLaren did not want to risk anything, and if the contact had occurred a few seconds earlier (one lap would have been enough) this measure would have been essential to avoid penalties at Silverstone, sending Norris back on track for an additional lap as Red Bull did with Sergio Perez a year ago at Suzuka.
Norris, in his misfortune, was doubly lucky. The British driver had to “thank” the short length of the Red Bull Ring and the nature of the puncture: since the latter occurred on the right rear, Norris had great difficulty turning in the left-hand turns (6 and 7), which were already much closer to the pits than turn 3. The damage to his McLaren only got worse in the last part of the lap: the British driver did not spread the debris all over the track, as Perez did in Montreal on the advice of Red Bull to avoid a Safety Car that would have called into question the leadership of Verstappen. Reason why Checo was punished and Norris “escaped” it and at Silverstone he will not back down from the qualifying result.
