Lando Norris was overwhelming in qualifying for the Sprint race of the Formula 1 Chinese GP. On his final lap, he clocked a time of 1m57.940s, beating Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) by 1.261s.
Initially, the lap of the McLaren driver was deleted as he had run off track at the last left-hand corner of the Shanghai circuit on the previous lap. In fact, he crossed the white line that marks the track limits with all four wheels, with the ones on the right even touching the gravel.
Since it was a track limits violation with all wheels, the rules were applied resulting in the immediate cancellation of the two laps. However, moments later, the time was unusually reinstated to Norris. Why?
The explanation is simple. The automatic deletion of laps that exceed track limits aims to prevent drivers from gaining an advantage in such situations – and in this specific case, the following lap is also deleted for the same reason.
The race control decided to restore the lap in question and Norris celebrated the pole position for the Sprint race. This was because it was concluded that he not only did not benefit from the violation, but also lost time.
Andreas Stella, McLaren team principal, explained to Sky Sports F1: ‘They may have thought it’s the case, I think if he had gone off at the last corner it has implications for the next lap. The next lap is the pole lap and that lap is completely clean. So, no problem at all. It was reinstated by the FIA itself. And definitely, as you go off track in this corner, you launch at a much lower speed. In fact, Lando loses almost three tenths because he went off track in the previous corner’.
