Lando Norris feels Lewis Hamilton deserved more penalties in a subtle dig at the FIA after the Austrian Grand Prix. Hamilton was furious after race stewards slapped him with a five-second penalty for crossing the white line on corner exits.
However, Norris feels Hamilton escaped justice and would have issued tougher sanctions on the Mercedes driver. Norris called out Hamilton’s transgressions early on in the race with officials issuing a penalty a few laps later.
McLaren then urged Norris to keep mentioning any violations which would be flagged to race control. After the race, the 23-year-old told Sky Sports F1: “Yeah, I was going to do a live commentary at every corner, pretty much.
“He only got a five-second penalty? It should be way more! He had about four strikes in one lap!”
Hamilton took to team radio to share his frustrations after being penalised early on in the Grand Prix. He told race engineer Peter Bonnington to investigate while repeatedly flagging potential breaches by Sergio Perez.
Hamilton moaned: “Just have a look at those because some of those are bull**** calls.” Later on in the race, Hamilton asked his team whether anyone else had penalties, prompting Toto Wolff to intervene.
The Mercedes chief explained: “Lewis they are all going to get penalties in front of you, all of them. So keep going.”
Norris avoided any penalties after engineer Will Joseph stressed the importance of staying on track. However, the British star expressed his sympathy for those caught out and hinted it was merely luck he wasn’t affected.
He added: “People on the outside, they complain, they don’t understand how difficult it is to stay within the track limits. Yes, I guess you can say I did and ‘Why can’t anyone else do it?’ but it depends on what position you’re in.
“If Fernando was behind me the last 5/10 laps, I can assure you that I’d have done track limits at least once and then I probably would have got a penalty. It just depends if you’re under pressure. When you’re under pressure, you’re pushing a little bit more, you have a little bit more of a slide.”
