Lando Norris miraculously escaped a penalty after he jumped the start of the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Saturday. The McLaren driver jolted forward right before the lights went off in Jeddah. However, he did not get any advantage out of it, instead, he had to endure the opposite, as revealed by F1 expert Peter Windsor.
From P6 on the grid, Norris moved forward a little as he prematurely released the clutch. But the #4 driver made sure he stopped again right in the grid box and did not trigger the alarm. Going by the onboard cameras and live footage, it was clear that the young British driver moved out of his box, and it was evident that he was on the verge of getting the penalty, but he didn’t!
The reason? Stewards explained that Norris’ movement did not set off the FIA’s transponder and hence, it did not count as a jump start. Even though the 24-year-old escaped the penalty, he could not run away from the disadvantage due to losing momentum, as Windsor explained.
In his latest video on YouTube, the former Ferrari manager said, “As a result of that, he lost momentum off the line quite obviously and lost a few positions so they kept him out when the safety car was deployed.”
Interestingly, Norris himself admitted to the incident. He said as per Motorsport, “I just went a little bit and then tried stopping again, and then went again. But overall, I lost. I didn’t gain anything from it.” Nonetheless, it is quite bizarre that Norris already made a joke on this before the start of the race.
What did Lando Norris say before the Saudi Arabian GP?
McLaren and Lando Norris struggled for pace throughout the whole Saudi Arabian GP. Norris, after experiencing McLaren’s slow straight-line speed stated that they are “super, super slow” on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
Given how Jeddah is a fast circuit, they were at a huge disadvantage. However, Norris had a way of covering it up and revealing this, he mentioned about the “jump start.” The McLaren driver, in an interview, joked that a jump start would help him to get the better of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso or Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Interestingly, it was George Russell who first notified his team about Norris’s jump start. Soon after Norris actually made a jump start in the race, that interview of him started going viral and it indeed, left fans amazed.
In the end, Lando Norris finished the Jeddah race in P8, two places below his starting position. His teammate Oscar Piastri, on the other hand, improved from P5 and finished the race in P4.
