Lando Norris believes the Formula 1 stewards’ penalty for his incident with Sergio Perez was needless and cost him second place in the Austrian Grand Prix.
Front row qualifier Norris was defending second against Perez as the Red Bull tried to pass around the outside at Turn 4 on the restart lap after an early safety car for Esteban Ocon’s stranded Alpine to be cleared.
Perez ended up running through the gravel and dropping to 10th place, with the stewards ruling that Norris had forced him off the road and imposing a 5s penalty.
That meant Valtteri Bottas was able to jump Norris in their pitstops when the penalty was taken, and this ended up costing him second place following Lewis Hamilton’s later problem.
“I’m disappointed because it should’ve been second place,” said Norris after chasing Bottas to the finish.
“I thought that lap one was just racing really.
“He tried to go around the outside, which was a bit stupid, and he just ran off the track himself, I didn’t even push him.”
Norris was still buoyed by McLaren’s pace all weekend, feeling only dirty air stopped him having a proper go at passing Bottas on track late on.
“I’m frustrated but I’m also happy with P3. We had very good pace,” he said.
“I could keep up with him a lot, even in dirty air, but not enough to get into the DRS.
“As soon as I got within or close to a second, I started struggling too much. Shoulda, woulda, coulda in the end.
“It’s nice to know that we can be there and we can race them.
“It was the first race in many years of actually racing the Mercedes and the Red Bulls.
“Hopefully we can keep it up next time.”
