McLaren chief Andreas Seidl said he was "quite happy" that Lando Norris received a time penalty for track limits violations during the Austrian Grand Prix – despite the racer's view that the rules are "a bit stupid".
Stewards at the Red Bull Ring were particularly strict when it came to the rules, which state a lap time must be deleted if a car goes fully across the white lines at the side of the track. At many venues on the calendar, only certain corners are policed.
The whole point of the rule is to make sure drivers are not gaining an advantage by purposefully going off the track so they can maintain speed through the exit of a corner. During qualifying in Austria, many drivers had their lap times deleted and Sergio Perez was dropped from fourth to 13th on the grid for a violation in Q2.
During the race, there were dozens of occasions where a driver was seen to go beyond the limits. One or two incidents were allowed to pass by the stewards, with the lap time simply deleted, but they decided to take a hard-line approach when it came to those who broke the rule too many times.
Norris was one of several given a five-second time penalty – a punishment his team principal admitted was fair. "In terms of track limits, all teams and drivers were screaming for consistency, or more consistency in the past," said Seidl when asked to give his reaction.
"In the end, that is why we ended up with the black and white rules, that you need to stay within track limits at any place on the track, which means you need to stay within the white lines. To be honest, even though we had a penalty, I am quite happy with that because it’s easy to understand for everyone."
While the McLaren chief accepted the punishment, Norris was less happy about it. "I did two of them very early on, so I was on my final warning for three of them quite early on," he said. "So I was on my final warning for quite a long time and it's a tough track to stay within the lines first of all, especially when you're fighting the car a bit more when you're pushing to try and get the guys ahead and you just have to push to that limit.
"I went over it obviously a few too many times which cost us, we should have been P6 ahead of [Mick] Schumacher I reckon, we could have had a fight with him I’d say, but they were quick, he did a good job, he managed the tyres well. And we got the points we wanted, so I think from our pre-race objectives, we succeeded in that."
But he later went on to say punishments for accidental violations are unfair, adding: "You can't see the white lines, it's just guessing and I'm obviously not good enough at guessing. I think when I really had to be I could be, it's just you've got to back off a bit, so it's more about risk-reward in a way.
"But even sometimes, like I got a warning from Turn 1 and it was just a complete mistake, I lost time, so when you look at it that way, I can say it's a bit stupid. I've locked up, I've hit the exit kerb, I've lost like three or four tenths. So it's not like not punishing me for the last corner where you just commit to running off and gaining an advantage. This was just me making mistakes. So I don't feel like I should be punished for it."
