Norris Penalty Sparks Outrage as Wolff Sides with McLaren
Oct.21 - Toto Wolff is siding strongly with McLaren, over the penalty that prevented Lando Norris from narrowing the championship points gap on Sunday.
Norris and championship leader Max Verstappen were locked in a spectacular battle for the last podium place in Austin when the McLaren driver left the track limits as he overtook Verstappen.
It cost Norris a five-second penalty.
"That's the rule," Red Bull's Dr Helmut Marko insists. "We insisted on our rights, generally I prefer the attitude 'Let them race'.
"But we have extended Max's lead by another five points, so we are more than satisfied. I think this is a turning point.
"We were not as good in the race as in the sprint, but in Baku we took the first step with the car, in Singapore the second, and here another one.
"The Ferraris were incredibly fast, but for us it was all about the fight with Norris. The world title is what we want and we have taken a big step towards that here. Of course Max will want to win more races, but in the end only the title counts," Marko added.
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella, however, blasted the penalty as "inappropriate" - and, fascinatingly, he was backed even more stridently by Mercedes' Toto Wolff.
The Austrian suggests the FIA may be acting in a biased manner in favour of Red Bull.
"In the sprint we saw some of these incidents that were exactly the same and there was no penalty," said the Mercedes team boss. "I see this penalty as just completely strange and bizarre.
"I think we know why, but I can't say it on TV. Just that sometimes there are correlations when it comes to interesting decisions like this."
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Wolff you are a fool.
Wolff it has nothing to do with you.
Continually criticising stewards decisions is unacceptable.
Keep quiet.
Rather listen to his opinion as a professional F1 manager than your biased rants.
Not rants my informed opinion after following F1 for 44 years.
It has nothing to do with Wolff he should shut up. F1 team managers don't always make the most sensible comments. Eg Wolff always making comments about Hamilton as though he walks on water.
I don't take any notice of your comments, mostly nonsense.
They are rants. 'informed opinion gathered from 44 of watching F1 on the tele', well why didn't you say. You should be interviewed rather than current drivers, commentators and managers.
Also, if you don't take notice of my comments how comes you reply?
Both He & Stella couldn't be more right.
Simply unnecessarily inconsistent rule application, especially when comparing the VER-NOR & VER-SAI incidents that happened in a more or less identical manner at T12, with both leaving track limits & the outside driver rejoining ahead, so, as Max didn't get penalized for gaining an advantage via off-track excursion, neither should've Lando or oppositely both equally, if at all.
Likewise, Max had zero intention of making T1 on the opening lap as he clearly started turning leftwards later than he could've at the earliest & unfairly used Lando as a brake, which still wasn't enough to stay within track limits.
The explanation both visually and from experience that AD gave was so simple under the current rules as agreed to by the drivers Max just played the game better, Mcl are just upset they are losing to a better team its simple, you can not agree thats fine but , Max won ,and Lando messed it up all weekend, the pressures building and Lando cant cope
The commentator gave a definitive frame-by-frame analysis of why Lando got the penalty. Both drivers were off the track, but only Nando decided to pass while off the track. He clearly accelerated past Max and back onto the track.
Someone made an interesting observation: McLaren knew they'd be assessed a penalty, and rather than give the position back, they decided to race for a 5-second gap.
They gambled, and lost.
So did Max decide to pass Carlos while off track in a similar manner when they went off together at the same corner on the opening lap, & Piastri ultimately also had a similar situation in the sprint, which he referenced as causing ambiguity.
Agreed 1. gained an advantage and 2 . passed a car while off the track, the whiners just cant see it, and the competition are just using smoke/mirrors which is pointless against Rb+Max ,because Max and Rb have been there before , a couple more bad race weekends like this for Lando, and his challenge will be almost over in his head, thankfully only a few days to wait
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