Rain made the Shanghai track even more slippery during Friday’s sprint qualifying. Max Verstappen, the world champion, slipped off the track twice, and Charles Leclerc tapped the wall with his car’s front wing.
Lando Norris from McLaren got the pole position for the sprint race, but his lap was almost deleted. Right before he started the lap that got him pole, Norris went off the track at Shanghai’s tricky final turn. He crossed the white line with all four tires and went into the gravel with his right-hand tires.
Usually, if a driver goes off the track, the FIA deletes their lap time. And if they do it on one lap, the system deletes the next lap too, to stop drivers from getting an advantage by going off the track to go faster.
But this time, race control realized Norris didn’t get any advantage by going off. Andrea Stella, McLaren’s team boss, said Norris lost about three-tenths of a second by going off, which made it harder for him to start his pole lap.
So, race control decided to put Norris back in pole position manually. If Norris had gained an advantage by going off, or if the rules said his time would be deleted, then they would have deleted his lap.
But because of the gravel trap at the corner where Norris went off, it’s almost impossible to go off and get faster.
Stella also explained that Oscar Piastri had a problem with his gearbox on his last lap because of too much wheelspin. This stopped Piastri from qualifying higher than eighth place.
Stella congratulated Norris for his good driving in tough conditions and said they were happy with how the session went in all, despite Piastri’s issue.
