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Lando Norris currently has eight of the eleven allowed penalty points to his name. according to McLaren-team boss Andreas Seidl there is therefore a realistic chance that Norris will receive a race ban in the course of 2021. Should this happen, there is a good chance that we will see Stoffel Vandoorne back at McLaren.
Norris received new penalty points on his license during the Austrian Grand Prix due to an incident with Sergio Pérez. The Mexican driver tried to overtake Norris from the outside, after which the Briton defended himself fairly fiercely. Pérez ended up next to the track and then fell back quite a bit. Although Red Bull team principal Christian Horner immediately said he thought it was a racing incident, the stewards on duty decided to hand out a penalty. Norris was given a five-second time penalty, which in retrospect may have cost him second place, as well as two penalty points. The stewards’ decision sparked a storm of criticism. Many people agree that the young Briton should never have been punished.
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After the Austrian Grand Prix, Norris briefly had ten penalty points on his license, which would put him alarmingly close to a race ban. Fortunately, two points have now been cleared, so that he can breathe a sigh of relief again. The problem, however, is that the next penalty points will not be acquitted until November 14. A look at the current Formula 1 calendar tells us that there are still eleven races on the calendar before then, which means that the McLaren driver will have to keep calm for a good while.
McLaren is concerned
Although two penalty points have been acquitted again, the McLaren team is very concerned about a possible race ban. “It’s not reassuring, there is a fundamental risk,” Seidl told Germany’s RTL. The team boss has therefore urged Norris to continue to achieve maximum performance, but without doing anything crazy. However, he also stands up for his driver.
“I think we can all agree that in an incident such as the one with Checo, it is not in the interest of Formula 1 for a driver to be suspended as a result,” he said. He emphasizes that he knows that the penalty points system is there for a reason, but that last Sunday’s penalty points make no sense. “We will discuss that in the next meetings with teams and Formula 1 and drivers will also bring it up,” said Seidl.
Replacement Norris
Should Norris indeed get a race ban during the season, McLaren will at least have a replacement ready. The British racing stable has signed an agreement with Mercedes allowing it to call on its reserve drivers. These are Nico Hulkenberg, Nyck de Vries and Stoffel Vandoorne. Seidl emphasizes that former McLaren driver Vandoorne is his first choice.
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