To say qualifying was a disaster for Lando Norris at the 2024 Azerbaijan GP would be an understatement, but what happened to the McLaren star and why will he start the race from the Baku City Circuit in 16th after being dumped out in Q1?
Max Verstappen and Red Bull might have breathed a massive sigh of relief when they spotted their F1 2024 rival was eliminated after only being 17th fastest, meaning the Dutchman should extend his title lead in Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Whilst McLaren are furious at what transpired by the Caspian Sea and declared they will be speaking to the FIA about why a yellow flag was briefly thrown as their driver aimed to push through to the second part of qualifying.
But the reality is they will start from 16th on September 14 and Norris feels like it will be a long shot to recover through the 51 laps as he needs a Formula 1 safety car to bring himself back into contention.
What happened to Lando Norris?
The drama all started when Esteban Ocon clipped the inside wall at Turn Six around the Baku City Circuit, and had to crawl back to the pits tentatively to ensure his rear-wheel driven Alpine avoided the walls.
At the same time, Norris had began his final attempt to cast his name into the Q2 ballot and was thundering around the track at normal speed before an unfortunate turn of events would strike him in Sector 3.
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Upon exiting Turn 15 and approaching Turn 16, one of the FIA marshal posts flashed a white flag to the McLaren star indicating that there is a slow moving car ahead, possibly distracting him as he fractionally missed his braking point and ran wide over the sausage kerb at the exit of Turn 16.
At this point, Ocon was moving slowly through Turn 17 and as Norris looked to start the long 2200m straight in Baku to push to the line, a marshal decided to throw a yellow flag meaning the 24-year-old had to lift off.
That ended his lap prematurely and he pitted to return to the garage knowing his afternoon, and potentially his championship dreams, had ended with one fell swoop of a marshal’s flag-waving hand.
Andrea Stella hits out at incident
Prior to the 2024 Azerbaijan GP weekend, Norris trailed Verstappen in the F1 2024 standings by 62 points with eight Grand Prix and three Sprint Races to go and was tasked with becoming the first McLaren world champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.
But now he’s set to see that lead extend away from him as long as Verstappen and Red Bull produce a result similar to their qualifying position leaving Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal, furious.
The 53-year-old Italian declared he will be speaking to the FIA about what he deemed an “unnecessary” yellow flag considering Ocon was only travelling slowly and had control of his Alpine car.
“We will do our best to get back into the points and to minimise the impact,” Stella told Sky Sports F1 after qualifying. “But obviously that was a very unfortunate moment for Lando today.
“We were discussing now with the FIA as to why a yellow flag was displayed at that moment in time, which was extremely costly.
“The team didn’t see it because it was displayed last minute and we checked right now in our tools and it is actually displayed as a yellow.
“So we were in conversations with the FIA as to why that happened because the yellow flag isn’t necessary when there’s a car is just a slow car, it is not on a flying lap.
“Everyone tried their best I’m sure, this time there was a situation that ideally, and I think by the regulations, shouldn’t have happened.”
