How eagle-eyed Max Verstappen earned big FIA punishment for Lando Norris
Max Verstappen spotted Lando Norris making up ground under yellow flags in Qatar
An eagle-eyed Max Verstappen alerted his Red Bull team to the possibility that Lando Norris did not slow for yellow flags during the Qatar Grand Prix.
It resulted in the McLaren driver being hit with a massive 10-second stop-go penalty by the FIA stewards at the Lusail International Circuit.
Max Verstappen spots Lando Norris transgression with ‘report’ request
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Seven days after sealing his fourth consecutive World Championship in Las Vegas, Verstappen collected his ninth race victory of the F1 2024 season in Qatar.
The Red Bull driver bounced back from a post-qualifying grid penalty to dominate, winning ahead of Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc and Norris’s McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri.
Norris had emerged as Verstappen’s closest threat in the first phase of the race, yet saw his challenge derailed after he failed to slow for a yellow flag for debris on the pit straight.
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After serving his penalty, Norris recovered in the latter stages to collect the final point for 10th place.
Having seen his lead over the McLaren cut by around half a second after going through the yellow flag zone, Verstappen was straight on to his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, to check if Norris had lifted off the throttle.
“Check if he lifted for the yellow,” Verstappen was heard saying over team radio. “There was a yellow in the middle of the straight.”
Lambiase replied: “Yeah, there was. We’ll have a look, make sure he lifted.”
After a brief pause, Lambiase returned to the airwaves to confirm to his driver that Norris did not ease his pace under yellows.
Lambiase said: “Lando did not lift, Max.”
Verstappen replied: “I hope you report than, then.”
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com in the post-race press conference, Verstappen revealed that his suspicions arose after he noticed that Norris had closed the gap at the exit of Turn 1, the corner immediately following the yellow flag zone.
And he went on to suggest that he would have found himself immediately under investigation by the stewards had he committed the same offence as Norris.
He said: “I knew that I lifted because I saw the double yellow.
“And I know that, of course, if I wouldn’t have lifted, it would have been investigated straight away.
“So you’re just on it. I asked if he lifted because he had a DRS, I think, from a backmarker at the same time as well.
“And then, of course, when we came out of Turn 1, I saw that he was a lot closer, so I just asked the team to check it.
“It was just a normal question. And I know, of course, with double yellows, they’re quite strict.”
Norris’s penalty means McLaren will have to wait until this weekend’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to secure their first Constructors’ Championship since 1998.
The Woking-based team hold a 21-point advantage over Ferrari entering the title decider with a maximum of 44 points available at the Yas Marina race.
Norris admitted that he “let the team down” in Qatar, insisting that he did not intentionally ignore yellow flags in his pursuit of Verstappen.
He told media including PlanetF1.com: “Disappointed, of course. I’ve let the team down.
“The team gave me a great car today, easily the quickest out there, and I f**ked it up. I don’t know what I did wrong.
“I’m not an idiot. If there’s a yellow flag, I know I need to slow down. That’s rule number one, you learn in go-karts.
“For some reason I didn’t do that today because I’ve not seen it or missed it or something, so I have to take it on the chin.
“They think I’ve done something wrong; I must have done something wrong. I can only apologise for the rest of the year to the team.”
Although a 10-second stop-and-go penalty was widely criticised as an excessive punishment, Norris argued that the penalty did fit the crime, adding: “If I did what they said I did wrong, then good on them for giving the correct penalty.”
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