McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says his team asked the FIA for an explanation for the yellow flag that ruined Lando Norris’ qualifying session.
Norris was eliminated from Q1 in 17th place in Baku after being forced to abandon his final lap having caught the slow-moving Alpine of Esteban Ocon at the exit of turn 16.Entering the final four minutes of Q1, Norris say in eighth position with a 1’43.609, just ahead of team mate Oscar Piastri in the times. Norris left the pit lane with over two minutes remaining, directly behind his team mate.
As Norris prepared himself on his out lap through the middle sector, Ocon was one of several drivers pushing in the first sector. At the exit of turn four, Ocon hit the outside wall with his left-rear wheel, puncturing the tyre. He almost crashed into the wall at turn six moments later, but was told to “try and keep going if we can, Esteban” by race engineer Josh Peckett.
At around the same time, Norris was beginning his final push lap. He was warned by race engineer Will Joseph to be “mindful of debris between turn six and turn seven – not sure where”. The yellow flag was initially shown as Ocon slowed before turn seven, but he was covered by a white flag through the majority of the lap as the Alpine recovered to the pits.
Norris had now completed the opening two sectors of the lap and was eight tenths of a second up on his previous best time and just over a second quicker than what would eventually turn out to be the cut off time for Q2, set by Fernando Alonso in 15th.
But as Norris rounded turn 16, he ran wide onto the outside kerb. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he had gone beyond the track limits, which would lead to his lap time being deleted.
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At the same time, the FIA timing system indicated a single yellow flag due to Ocon’s slow-moving car at track sector 18 – the exact section of the circuit Norris was travelling through. Although Ocon was off the racing line on the way towards turn 18, he appeared to slow almost to a stop in an effort to give Norris enough chance to pass him into the fast kinks of turns 18 and 19.
As Norris rounded turn 17, a LED marshals board at turn 18 appeared to be flashing green, but may have appeared yellow from a distance in the evening light. However, Norris could have reasonably assumed that the green flag ahead meant he was in a yellow flag zone as he passed the slow Alpine. He backed off before the fast kinks and abandoned his lap.
“I had a yellow flag,” he told Joseph over the radio. “Can I go again or not?”
“No,” Joseph replied. “We have to box. We have to box.” When Norris returned to the garage, Joseph said: “Mate, I’m sorry. They shouldn’t have done that.”
Despite his close brush with track limits at turn 16, Norris’ final lap was not listed among the seven deleted from the session for track limits infringements. This suggests that Norris would have kept his lap had he completed it. As he only passed through a single yellow flag zone, his time would not have been deleted under the instructions laid out in the race director’s Event Notes, so long as he had demonstrated to have “discernibly reduced speed” through the sector.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the team’s qualifying, with Oscar Piastri second behind Charles Leclerc and Norris down in 17th, was a “bittersweet, difficult situation” for his team.
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“The ‘sweet’ element is that the performance of the car was good again,” he told the official F1 channel. “We knew that this track would have been a bit difficult for us and the weekend wasn’t unfolding very easily.
“But I have to say that, especially in Q3, Oscar was able to put all the pieces together. A strong performance, only beaten by a specialist at this track like Leclerc. So it’s good from that side for Oscar, it’s good for us. We can definitely fight for a podium tomorrow.”
However, he admitted that the team had enquired with the FIA for the reason why Ocon’s car was covered by a yellow flag just as Norris was about to pass him on track.
“On Lando’s side, we were on a good lap to get through in Q1. There was a little mistake out of the last corner, but I think there should have been no problem to go through.
“Then we found the yellow flag. We were discussing at the end of the session with the FIA as to why the yellow flag was displayed, because that was only a slow car going with no safety implications. So we are puzzled as to why the yellow flag was displayed.”
Despite Norris starting from his worst grid position of the season, Stella is confident that he can still finish in the top ten on Sunday.
“Points should be possible,” he said. “Obviously I hope there will be important points. It will require some attrition ahead of us, I think.
“We have to say that during this weekend, Red Bull as well, they’ve been competitive, Mercedes – all these top four teams have a car there at the front. Williams, they seem to be competitive, so it’s pretty crowded. We’ll have to do a good job.”
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Stephen Taylor
14th September 2024, 16:28
Mr Wood I suspect Norris”s lap which he bailed out of wssn’t looked at for track limits because he entered the pitlane instead of of completing it. The FIA as far I am aware don’t police laps where a driver has aborted into the pitlane instead of the yellow.
Stephen Taylor
14th September 2024, 16:31
* completing the lap not yellow.
Will Wood (@willwood)
14th September 2024, 16:58
That’s a perfectly fair thing to assume, but it’s not actually the case.
The stewards listed seven lap times deleted from qualifying for track limits infringements. One was an out lap, with two of them being laps that drivers returned to the pits at the end of.
It’s likely that if Norris had been deemed to have breached track limits, his lap would have been deleted as the two others were despite the fact that they ended up with drivers pitting at the end of them.
Jere (@jerejj)
14th September 2024, 16:32
Again, what yellow? I don’t get this whole thing, as the lack of yellow was evident on the replay footage, i.e., the preceding light panel didn’t display yellow, nor did Norris receive yellow lights on the steering wheel.
Mr B
14th September 2024, 16:57
Karun Chandhok showed on the Sky pad that a yellow panel was displayed very briefly. I don’t recall him showing a ‘yellow flag’ display on LN’s steering wheel.
I think Lando had already pants’d the corner anyway and as Jacque Villeneuve pointed out LN was free to drive flat out to the point of the yellow flag, which I don’t think he did.
Jere (@jerejj)
14th September 2024, 17:32
Mr B Okay, although I’m sure I would’ve noticed if he had yellow warning lights on the steering wheel as I tend to look at them on onboard footage, but he indeed had already messed up the lap by going wide at the last (proper) corner.
Mr B
14th September 2024, 21:40
To be fair Karun had to put the playback into super slow motion just so we could catch a glimpse of the yellow panel.
I don’t think it ever came up on Lando’s steering wheel.
I’m not sure how big a factor it was, everything happened so quickly and as we agreed it seems LN had already made a mistake on that corner.
James B
14th September 2024, 16:34
Great article and perspective! Helped me understand the situation. Thank you!!
Nick T.
14th September 2024, 23:29
It didn’t though. Cause a yellow didn’t ruin his lap. Lando ruined his own lap.
Leo B
14th September 2024, 16:46
Norris went very wide off track at one corner, another reason to abort..
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
15th September 2024, 2:30
I mean, he had nothing to lose by trying to finish the lap, maybe he’d have been in q2 (and as a consequence, q3 eventually) and if not, can’t be worse than 17th.
David BR (@david-br)
14th September 2024, 16:55
I don’t get why he aborted the lap. Baffled. It just seems to sum up Norris’s kind of ‘damp squib’ approach. Getting a good grid position ahead of Verstappen was critical for him this race. Why on earth wouldn’t you just ease off a fraction if you think you’ve seen a yellow flag (somewhat clouded in mystery or the ‘evening sun’ as the report says), put the lap on the board and let the race stewards sort out any infringement, penalty etc? Abandoning the lap guarantees failure to get through Q1.
Doh
14th September 2024, 18:07
I agree, seems like a mistake from him no? If he was 8 tenths up he could have just lifted a bit and still got through to q2. Odd that he didn’t finish it. I didn’t need any oersuadih but just further cemets the fact that he doesn’t seem “fit” or ready/deserving to be champion
Doh
14th September 2024, 18:09
Okay in hindsight, it’s fast blind corners with no run off. Still wonder what the tolerances were
David BR (@david-br)
14th September 2024, 23:33
I think Norris could see Ocon and just over-reacted.
Doh
15th September 2024, 8:00
Thanks
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
14th September 2024, 17:32
I think if we put ourselves in Lando shoes / boots for a minute, it’s easy to be ‘over cautious’, going into that horribly blind series of kinks, he knows he can’t deny that he knew there was a limping Ocon somewhere in there because of the radio / flags – he’s gone over the kerb, lifted, panicked, realised there isn’t another ‘go around’ option, and ultimately ended up at the back.
As for the flags / Ocon. I’d hate to have to navigate a limping car through that last section, it’s not Monza, the racing line switches from side to side with no means of him seeing behind. Rather than a white, I can understand someone wanting to throw a yellow there. If Lando and Ocon had met each other in the middle of that section at speed we’d be having a very different conversation.
bosyber (@bosyber)
14th September 2024, 18:21
Yes, indeed. Also, the FIA need drivers to be cautious, rather than callous with security (ie. not the ‘not yet at my max sector time so can speed up even though in yellow’ period we had a decade ago); that does ask the FIA to be as clear and accurate as possible of course, though it will never be flawless and is always better for the FIA to err on the side of safety.
Phil
14th September 2024, 18:20
Penalty for new engine won’t hurt much now, swap everything you can out and start at the back….
Mr B
14th September 2024, 18:28
That was my first thought, he won’t have much trouble passing the couple of cars that he out-qualified and be right back to where he would have started within one lap.
The only issue I see is that such engine changes weren’t announced at the start of the weekend and as such would the car being worked on mean that he has to start from the pit lane because of part ferme rules? No chance to overtake anyone starting from the pit lane.
AlanD
14th September 2024, 23:14
The article mentions that in certain ambient lighting conditions, it can be hard to tell the difference between green and yellow. I wonder why they don’t use shape as well as colour for added clarity, i.e. for the red light, show it as a flashing red cross, the amber light as a flashing triangle, and the green light as simply a solid panel as at present. As the warning light system is also wired directly into the drivers wheel dashboard, it should also be possible for it to be wired into their earpieces so it goes beep-beep beep-beep when they enter a yellow zone, and a gently ding when they go back to green.