Nocturnal 
Lando Norris says he “guesses it’s his fault” after narrowly avoiding a collision with his McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri during a Safety Car period, an incident that landed him in front of the stewards.
The Briton was investigated for driving erratically behind the Safety Car, leaving the track and rejoining unsafely, and potentially overtaking another car while it was deployed. He was ultimately handed a reprimand, as first reported by RaceFans.
Norris was closing in on a queue of cars when George Russell’s Mercedes stopped with a mechanical problem just ahead of turn one, causing everyone in front of Norris to slow sharply. According to the stewards’ findings, low sun and poor visibility made it hard for Norris to spot that the cars ahead had already begun checking up.
“I couldn’t see from the angle, and just from where I was, how much everyone had stopped because of George on the inside,” Norris said, as quoted by RaceFans. “By the time I kind of looked at George and looked back, I could see them, but it’s hard when you’re directly behind to see if they’re going 100 kph, 200 or 10. They were going 10, so I just got completely caught out.”
He added: “I guess it’s my fault in the end of the day. I was just unlucky with it, everyone just checked up so much and I just got screwed over by it, that’s all.”
What the stewards found
Realising he was approaching far too quickly, Norris braked hard and steered left onto the kerbs and into the gravel to avoid hitting Piastri. That move cost him grip and further hampered his braking, and in the process he momentarily went ahead of Piastri before his team mate immediately repassed him while Norris was off the circuit.
The stewards decided that brief moment in front did not count as an overtake, since it happened only because Norris was taking evasive action off the track, and took no further action on that specific point. He was still reprimanded over the wider handling of the incident, having rejoined the pack having lost several places after his trip through the gravel trap.
In a separate incident during an earlier Safety Car period, Williams driver Alexander Albon was also investigated for driving erratically after appearing to slow while following team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr into the pits, forcing Piastri to take avoiding action. Albon was cleared with no further action taken.
Why it matters
Reprimands might sound minor, but in Formula 1 they carry real consequences. Under the sport’s regulations, a driver who picks up three reprimands within a season is handed an automatic 10-place grid penalty at their next race, so every additional caution chips away at a driver’s margin for error for the rest of the year.
Safety Car periods are also treated strictly by stewards because overtaking is banned while the pace car is out, precisely to avoid the kind of chaotic bunching that caught Norris out here. The incident is a reminder of how quickly conditions can change behind the Safety Car, with drivers forced to react to cars slowing without warning metres ahead of them.
For now, Norris’s reprimand stands and Albon has been cleared of any wrongdoing, with the stewards satisfied that neither driver deliberately endangered another car. Attention now turns to how the reprimand affects Norris’s disciplinary record for the remainder of the season.
