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Lando Norris was handed a 10 second stop-and-go penaltly at the Qatar GP for not slowing down under yellow flags.
There was some speculation and confusion as to whether or not the Ferrari drivers also broke the same rule. It turned out that F1 showed an incorrect replay on the race broadcast which led to the speculation.
Telemetry data allows us to verify whether Sainz and Leclerc should have been penalised.
Mirror mirror on the track
On lap 29 of the Qatar Grand Prix a right-hand wing mirror departed Alex Albon’s Williams along the start finish straight of the Lusail Circuit.
The mirror lay in the middle of the track, not on the racing line but just to the right of it, exactly where a driver would place their car if they were trying to overtake in the DRS zone approaching turn 1.
There has been a lot of discussion and criticism of the new F1 race director Rui Marques’ decision not to throw an immediate safety car, either Virtual or Full, to clear the debris from the circuit.
As we now know, that decision led to both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz suffering punctures after Valtteri Bottas hit the mirror causing shards of carbon fibre to cover the track.
Instead of a safety car, Marques’ initial response was to throw a double-waved yellow flag. In his event notes leading up to the weekend, Rui Marques clarified the rules under these flag conditions:
“Any driver passing through a double waved yellow marshalling sector must reduce their speed significantly and be prepared to change direction or stop. ”.
Verstappen doesn't miss anything
Verstappen entered the double-waved yellow flags at the start of lap 30. Despite these being barely visible as he passed them at top speed, he spotted them and lifted off the throttle significantly. He also hit the brake momentarily.
At the time, Verstappen was leading the race by less than two-seconds from Norris. After slowing for the flags and noticing how hard there were to spot, he got straight on the radio to his engineer Gianpiero Lambiese (GP) and asked him to check whether Norris slowed down.
A short while later, GP radioed back to confirm that Norris did not slow down for the yellows. Infact, Norris set his PB in the first sector on that lap and reduced the gap to Verstappen by over half a second.
The telemetry below, taken from the excellent F1 Tempo, shows us the throttle trace for both Max and Lando when they passed the double waved yellows.
You can also see at the top of the telemetry image above that Lando’s lap time was almost 6-tenths of a second faster than Max’s. Additionally, Lando reached 324kph at the end of the main straight whereas Max lifted off the throttle at 303kph.
So Lando was slapped with a 10 second stop-and-go penalty which cost him around 30 seconds of race time and resulted in him taking just one point in 10th place. The result is McLaren now have a much smaller gap ahead of Ferrari in the constructor’s standings coming in to the final race at Abu Dhabi.
F1 showed the wrong replay
There has been a lot of discussion on social media about whether the Ferrari drivers should also face the same penalty for not slowing down under yellows.
Formula 1 themselves only added to this speculation by showing the replay of the wrong lap on the world feed during the race, after Lando had been handed his penalty.
Instead of showing Lando going along the main straight on lap 30, they showed him at full throttle on lap 31, one lap later. By that point the double waved flags had been removed and only a single, stationary yellow light board was present near the debris, as seen in the image below.
Drivers are not required to lift off the throttle under a stationary single yellow.
Confused by this, fans watched the replays of the Ferrari drivers going along the straight on the same lap shown by F1 in their replay of Norris, lap 31, and saw that neither Leclerc nor Sainz lifted off the throttle.
Should Ferrari have been penalised?
If we look at the telemetry for Sainz and Leclerc on the correct lap of the double-waved yellow, lap 30, we can see the true story. The telemetry below also shows Lando’s throttle trace for comparison.
So the data makes it clear. Both Sainz and Leclerc lifted off the throttle as they went through the double-waved yellow section on the main straight, before they reached the next green light board. Neither of them braked, but they lifted enough to show the stewards that they were aware of and reacting to the flags.
Sainz has a short, big lift and Leclerc has a longer, smaller lift, but the difference in lap-times compared to Norris show the effect. Sainz was almost 7-tenths slower than Lando and Leclerc was 6-tenths slower, thanks to Norris’ failure to reduce his speed under the flags.
So the stewards got it right, Lando messed up. If he wants to stand any chance of taking the fight to Verstappen in 2025, these are the kind of mistakes he cannot afford.
As for Max, well you don’t end up a 4-time World Champ for nothing. His eagle eyes and quick message on the radio to his engineer may well have alerted the stewards to something that perhaps might have gone unnoticed, given the chaos ensuing with the wing mirror at the time.
If you watch this onboard clip of Sainz going through the double yellows x.com you can see and hear he’s full throttle and only lifts off slightly before the corner as that’s where he was informed by his race engineer the double yellows were.
Where Leclerc lifts off in the graph above, is where the double yellows are being waved, then he goes full throttle again once he’s passed them and the flag is green (the double yellows were not for the full straight).
As you can see in the graph Sainz was still flat out when Leclerc was lifting, then lifted near the end of the straight when Leclerc was full throttle again.
Sainz is a very lucky man as this is the second race in a row he’s got away without a penalty (Vegas pit entry).
Sainz lifted before he reached the green light board which signifies the end of the double yellow section, and that it what matters here. If he’d lifted are the green light (but before his usual braking point) then he would have been penalised as he wouldn’t have slowed down in the double-yellow section. But you’re right, it’s a matter of a few metres, so he’s lucky!