Last weekend was the 2023 Canadian Grand Prix. Once again, the two-time world champion Max Verstappen dominated from start to finish the race held at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada.
It was an event where there were too many penalties, however. Many of them happened during the qualifying session. To start, Hulkenberg had qualified in second position, however a 3-place grid penalty, derived for not following the red flag procedure, saw him drop to fifth. Another driver penalised with three places on the grid for Sunday’s race was Carlos Sainz for blocking Pierre Gasly.
One of the most controversial penalties of the weekend, and which we are going to talk about in this article, was the 5-second time penalty imposed on Lando Norris.
What was the reason for that penalty? The main reason was because the McLaren driver was going too slow during a Safety Car period, this in order for the British team to double stack (both cars to enter on the same lap to do their pit-stop).
The Brit decided to go slower than usual so that he would not waste time going into the pits to change his tyres, as McLaren would be busy changing them for his teammate, Oscar Piastri. This was the real reason why the FIA penalized the driver of car number 4.
The controversy comes when the FIA announces the reason why it decided to impose this sanction, since they argued that it had been due to ‘unsportsmanlike behaviour’. It is well known that going slower during a Safety Car period is penalised, but it would not qualify as unsportsmanlike behaviour.
We know that the FIA issues documents that explain in more detail the decisions of the stewards when imposing a sanction. In this document, it points out that there was a difference of around 50 km/h between the speed that Piastri had compared to the one of Norris.
It also quotes a paragraph from the International Sporting Code, commenting “any infringement of the principles of fairness in competition, behaviour in an unsportsmanlike manner or attempt to influence the results of a competition, in a way that is contrary to sporting ethics”. This would be the version by the FIA, which penalised the British driver.
Photo credit: McLaren Racing
For his part, the McLaren driver commented that he was going at a good speed during this period, in addition to confessing that his team preferred not to tell him why he had been penalised over the radio.
“I don’t know what I got a penalty for.” He was then told that it was because he left a gap in order to double stack. “The team didn’t tell me, so I got no idea! Too slow under the Safety Car?” He was told that it was on the backstraight, as was announced by the FIA. “Okay, interesting. No, I only got told to box like three seconds before the entry.
“By that time, I was flat out, so it doesn’t make sense to me.
“There’s plenty of times where you go slow under VSC, so if I get a penalty today, I should get a penalty for the last three years as well and so should everyone else, but no, I don’t think I did anything wrong.”
He was also asked to confirm if McLaren told him the reason of the penalty, Norris denied it.
“No, all they said was a [five-second penalty] five or 10 laps to go.”
Another point that was discussed with the McLaren driver was the rear wing of Esteban Ocon’s Alpine. During the race you could see how the rear wing moved around very aggressively. The main driver affected by this was Norris, since the McLaren driver had been chasing Ocon for eighth position in the closing laps.
The FIA agreed with Alpine that the behaviour of his rear wing was unusual, but it did not reach the point of being dangerous to the other drivers. This was what the British driver commented on it.
“Yeah, I was just like ducking down the straights a little bit. In the corners you’re fine, but at the end of the straights when you got like DRS and it’s wobbling, I was like just ducking,” Norris stated. “I didn’t want to get hit by anything. It’s enough to get hit by a little stone, so the last thing I wanted to do is get hit by a rear wing.”
“It is not my decision. I just said it, the rest is not up to me,” Norris affirmed when asked if Ocon’s wobbling rear wing should have seen the Frenchman pit under safety grounds.
