Lando Norris was fuming after he was blocked by Charles Leclerc during the Monaco GP qualifying on Saturday. The Briton made his frustrations abundantly clear as he was adamant that the Monegasque should receive a penalty.
When asked about the same during his post-qualified interview, Norris replied, “He just blocked me. As simple as that“. When asked what does he expect to happen, the 23-year-old added, “A penalty for him“. He was then asked what kind of penalty, to which he replied, “I do not know. Disqualified or something“.
If Leclerc does end up getting a penalty for the incident, his home race would be off to another disaster before it even begins. The Monegasque has a terrible record at his home Grand Prix as he has just finished one race out of the five that he has competed in across both F1 and F2.
What happened between Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc?
As seen in the video below, Charles Leclerc clearly seemed to impede Lando Norris in the tunnel as the McLaren driver was forced to slow down rapidly. Since Leclerc was on a slow lap, he should’ve moved aside to give the fast approaching Norris a clear track.
A closer look at the incident between Norris and Leclerc in the tunnel 👀#MonacoGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/uxp1jIRhq1
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 27, 2023
Since the Monegasque did not do so, he most likely would receive a penalty. However, if the stewards find any information that did not make it possible for Leclerc to move aside in time, then at their discretion they may also decide otherwise.
Irrespective of what the verdict is, until it comes, Leclerc and Ferrari will undoubtedly have an anxious wait. With Leclerc having qualified third, any penalty incurred by him will drop him down the grid by that many places.
F1 fans have differing views over Norris and Leclerc’s incident
F1 fans have had all sorts of views on the incident between Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc that may result in the Monegasque receiving a penalty. Some F1 fans believe that the Monegasque may escape a penalty as they attempted to ‘get out of the way‘. As a result, they believe that at most Leclerc should receive a ‘reprimand and a fine and nothing else‘.
you can see leclerc tried to get out of the way but it was too late and there is literally no space. should be a reprimand and a fine and nothing else, there are a lot of mitigating circumstances here that can be argued
— 🌼 (@theredsedici) May 27, 2023
Meanwhile, some other fans such as Chichi blamed Leclerc’s race engineer Xavi for this incident. They believe that it is unfair that a driver is at risk of getting penalized when it is their engineer’s fault for not informing them on time. They pointed out that Xavi only informed Leclerc about Norris when the Briton had already passed him.
i really hate that sometimes a driver, whoever that might be, risks/gets penalised for a mistake that it’s not even his but of the track engineer it’s so crazily unfair. Xavier literally told him that norris was pushing after he already was in front of charles😭😭
— chichi🍂 – fp3 and qualy done at home🏡🇲🇨| 16 (@charles_lefast) May 27, 2023
And then there were some other fans such as Laura who could not see Leclerc getting away without being penalized.
I would be surprised if Charles doesn’t get a penalty for this.
— Laura🏴 (@andersonlaura12) May 27, 2023
