The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix stewards have explained why Lando Norris escaped without a penalty for appearing to jump the start.
Other drivers were convinced Norris had jumped the start, but after announcing an investigation the stewards confirmed no action would be taken against him.
Onboard footage from Norris’s start appeared to show the McLaren moving forward as the five starting lights were illuminated and then extinguished. Norris stopped his car for a moment once the lights went out before fully launching from his grid slot.
By moving while the lights went out, Norris appeared to have infringed article 48.1 1 of the sporting regulations, which states that any driver who is judged to have “moved before the start signal is given” will be penalised.
Behind Norris, George Russell immediately reported that the McLaren driver had “jumped the start” to his team. It took until lap 11 for the incident to be noted by the stewards. Three laps later Norris was cleared.
In their decision, the stewards clarified that Norris had not committed an infringement under the wording of the regulations as the FIA’s standardised data transponder did not indicate he had jumped the start.
They noted that the regulations “state clearly that the judgment of whether or not there was a jump start is to be made in accordance with the transponder, which did not show a jump start.”
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“In the circumstances,” the stewards continued, “we took no further action.”
The decision is consistent with an incident which took place at the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, in which Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel moved in a similar manner to Norris before the lights went out. The stewards at that event gave no penalty to Vettel as his transponder also did not indicate a jump start.
Norris was also involved in another incident prior to the start of the race when he was forced to stop in the pit lane while heading out on his reconnaissance lap due to Yuki Tsunoda’s RB being released in front of him.
The stewards determined that Tsunoda left the garage despite an RB team member signalling to him not to do so. Tsunoda accepted responsibility for the near-miss. Tsunoda was hit with a five second post-race time penalty, which dropped him from 14th to 15th in the final classification, behind Logan Sargeant.
The stewards noted that Tsunoda’s actions typically would have earned him a penalty point on his superlicence, as happed to…
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