.Not quite the luckiest way to kick off the weekend for Lando Norris in Baku.
He was on what was supposed to be the final run of Q1 for his McLaren, when Esteban Ocon – who was running in front of the Brit, while on his own flying lap with his Alpine – touched the barriers.
Ocon was slowly coming back in the pits with his damaged car and moved aside to let Norris pass by and yellow flags came out, forcing him to slow down.
Not being able to complete this last lap meant an early drop out in Quali and resulted in a P15, between Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas, on the starting grid for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
An episode that raised a bit of controversy as to whether the yellow flags were necessary or not in the situation.
Something that the McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella was asked about last Sunday after the race.
“We talked to the FIA, we tried to understand their point of view as to why the white flag became yellow when Lando went through the high speed section,” he told media.
“We understand that in the opinion of the local marshall, that was a yellow flag because of the speed, the differential between the two cars. Here it really goes in the interpretation of what is safe and what is not safe.”
“We have never been critical with the FIA in relation to this episode,” he explained.
They did speak with the race direction about it.
“We were constructive in our conversation, we said maybe we should judge together with the drivers whether that’s a white flag or a yellow flag, because it’s not in the area of mathematics, it’s in the area of understanding or perceiving what is danger.”
“So the conversation happened, it was constructive, it was very costly for us that it was a yellow flag. We will assess in the future whether this case should have deserved either of the two flags.”
Starting far from the back Norris went on a long first stint on Hards and then switched to Mediums in order to attack and regain quite a few positions.
Ultimately Norris – also following the DNFs for Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz in the last laps – finished the race in fourth place, behind the Mercedes of George Russell and most importantly ahead of the Red Bull of title contender Max Verstappen.
