McLaren has been hit with a fine of $5000 for releasing Lando Norris unsafely in the pitlane during Dutch GP qualifying.
During the opening minutes of the qualifying at the Dutch Grand Prix, McLaren driver Lando Norris was sent out into the path of AlphaTauri of Yuki Tsunoda causing an unsafe release in the pitlane.
Tsunoda was forced to stop to avoid crashing into Norris and so did George Russell who was behind the AlphaTauri driver.
Stewards noted the incident and investigated it after the qualifying session. Following this, McLaren has been slapped with a fine of $5000.
Fines have also been imposed on Alfa Romeo driver Valtteri Bottas and Williams’ Nicholas Latifi who were caught exceeding the 60km/h speed limit during qualifying.
Bottas has been fined $600 as he was clocked speeding at 65.1km/h while Latifi was only penalised with $500 as he was recorded at 64.1km/h.
Also Read: George Russell aims to steal points from Ferrari and Red Bull on Sunday
Lando Norris hoping for a lonely race
Norris qualified P7 at the Zandvoort circuit while his teammate Daniel Ricciardo could only finish P17 and was knocked out in Q1.
He revealed that his team was not expecting a better performance than Alpine this weekend and therefore was shocked to have outperformed them.
The Briton said that he is happy with his job in the qualifying as he has given himself a good chance to bring some points home.
P7 for the boss, let’s get them tomorrow @LandoNorris 💪 #DutchGP pic.twitter.com/AIYWWxuwf1
— Quadrant (@Quadrant) September 3, 2022
“I expect the top six to just pull away and hopefully leave me a lonely race, which I would actually look forward to tomorrow. But there are a lot of quick cars behind, including Mick Schumacher. Haas has looked quick today especially, so not expecting an easy race, but I would love one.”
Meanwhile, his teammate could not get out of the elimination zone in Q1 and therefore had to park his car in the garage for the rest of the session.
The Australian will start the race from P17 and revealed an issue at the final corner brought an early end to his qualifying session.
Also Read: Lando Norris is ‘hurt’ by exceptional Max Verstappen performances