“I am not an idiot”, claims Norris after his race-deciding mistake in Qatar

Following his unfortunate mistake at the Qatar Grand Prix, McLaren driver Lando Norris reckons that he did not deliberately fail to slow down in the yellow-flag sector.

McLaren were favourites heading into the Qatar Grand Prix, with the Lusail International Circuit playing to the strengths of their MCL38 due to its long-radius medium-speed corners.

The team delivered in sprint qualifying and took an impressive one-two finish in the Qatar F1 Sprint before losing out in the main qualifying in which Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri only finished third and fourth behind Max Verstappen.

The British driver jumped to second at the start, and disappeared with Verstappen into the distance, but a yellow flag incident meant that he was hit with a ten-second stop-and-go penalty. After serving the penalty, he rejoined the field in last place, but showing eye-catching performance in the final stages of the race, he bounced back to take the last championship point.

Reflecting on his race in which he displayed eye-catch performance on both the medium and the hard compound, Norris has emphasized that he did not deliberately fail to slow down in a bid to gain a potential competitive advantage to Verstappen.

The three-time F1 race winner commented: “I am not an idiot. If I knew there was a yellow, I would have slowed down.”

“The team gave me a great car today, it was the quickest out there, so I’m disappointed we haven’t been able to secure maximum points in Qatar. I know the rules around Yellow Flags, but I missed it. I have to take that on the chin. I can only apologise to the team.

“We have one more weekend to go now and we’ll head to Abu Dhabi with the same mindset as any other weekend, and that’s wanting to win.”