Norris still frustrated by ‘unfair’ Azerbaijan qualifying despite strong race performance

An impressive recovery to fourth at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was not enough for Lando Norris to shake off the feeling of having been unfairly yellow-flagged in qualifying.

Norris was doing his final timed lap of Q1 and was about to improve when he came across a slow-moving Esteban Ocon in the final sector. A yellow flag came out, meaning Norris took his foot off the gas and aborted his lap, despite Ocon having limped back into the pits with a puncture for some time under a white flag indicating a slow-moving vehicle.

Despite dropping from 15th to fourth ahead of Max Verstappen on Sunday, Norris says the incident had a huge impact on his scoring potential.

“No, it wasn’t fair, you don’t have to be a scientist to figure that out,” Norris said. “It’s not for me to decide, it’s not for me to say. It was unfair and it ruined my whole weekend… I know I got a fourth and it’s not bad, but it could have been better. Oscar showed what was possible.”

“It was unfair. There was no yellow the whole lap and they put a yellow just as I was passing. Did I go off the track just before? Yes. Would I have still easily made it into the top 15? Yes. I know a lot of people thought it would have ruined my lap, but even with my exit I only lost a few tenths and I would have easily been in the top 15.”

“People can say what they want and I find it funny, but I had no control over the situation and it was unfair. It cost me a lot of points in the championship and kind of ruined my weekend. So it’s disappointing, especially because of the quality of the car. I’m a guy who was thinking about what could have happened, not necessarily what we did. But I’m very happy with my performance.”

Despite being frustrated with the qualifying result, Norris admits beating Verstappen was not a realistic target ahead of the race, with the team predicting eighth place as the likely result.

“I’m a little surprised because when you start 15th you don’t expect to beat him. They all boxed and we were behind them so I was about 22 seconds behind where they were in real terms. So to create a gap in front of him and then box and pass him anyway, I didn’t expect to do something like that.

“But I was able to defend against Max because he spent six laps trying to catch me, a few laps behind when the Ferrari was behind, and I knew his tyres were getting a bit hot so he couldn’t attack me anymore. So I played the game well and I knew I couldn’t defend against Carlos, but I could defend against Max.”

“But the most important thing is that I defended against Checo and I allowed him not to get the better of Oscar, which allowed us to go for the victory. So I did my little part for the team, which I am very happy about because it allowed us to finish at the top of the constructors’ standings, that’s probably what makes me the happiest.”