Lando Norris has been given a five-second penalty for the Canadian Grand Prix he crashed out of, rather than a grid drop for the next Formula 1 race in Austria.
Norris clumsily drove into the back of McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, trying to pass him for fourth in the closing laps of the Montreal race.
Norris and Piastri were chasing Kimi Antonelli for the final podium place when Norris made an opportunistic move on Piastri at the hairpin.
Piastri cut back, and they went side-by-side down to the final chicane, where Piastri braked later on the inside to retake the position.
Norris got a run onto the main straight and drove into the back of Piastri trying to move into a gap that was not there between him and the wall, breaking Norris’s front wing and then crumpling the front left suspension as his car hit the pitwall.
Although he was obviously not running at the chequered flag as a result of that accident, Norris was technically classified as a finisher in 18th, as he had covered at least 90% of the race distance covered by winner George Russell.
This is key to the punishment dished out by the stewards, who unsurprisingly determined Norris was wholly to blame for the collision with Piastri and felt it merited a slightly reduced five-second penalty despite there being “no immediate and obvious sporting consequence”.
If a time penalty is imposed on a driver who cannot serve that penalty because they were unclassified in the race, the stewards may impose a grid place penalty on the driver at their next race.
So, while the stewards' own terminology acknowledged Norris "retired" from this race, as established above, he was still classified - four laps down on the winner and three laps down on the next classified finisher, 17th-placed Lance Stroll.
So Norris has escaped carrying a penalty into the next race weekend in Austria, and instead gets a meaningless five-second penalty that does not impact his Canada result.
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