Why McLaren were “puzzled” by the yellow flag that ruined Norris’s qualifying · RaceFans

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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