Lando Norris blamed Sebastian Vettel for the three-position grid penalty that was issued to Romain Grosjean for the second race of the 2019 Formula 1 season, the Bahrain Grand Prix.
After impeding McLaren rookie Lando Norris during the qualifying session for the second race on the 21-race 2019 Formula 1 schedule, the Bahrain Grand Prix, at Bahrain International Circuit, Rich Energy Haas’ Romain Grosjean was issued a three-position grid penalty.
So while the 32-year-old Frenchman originally qualified in eighth place for the 57-lap race around the 15-turn, 3.363-mile (5.412-kilometer) Bahrain International Circuit road course in Sakhir, Bahrain by recording a top lap time of 89.015 seconds (136.009 miles per hour) in the third and final round of qualifying for the race, he is set to start in 11th.
However, Norris places the blame on Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel for causing this incident.
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Vettel had just passed Grosjean, which caused Grosjean to react and thus caused him to go slowly on the racing line.
As a result, Norris, who was on a flying lap at the time, approached Grosjean near turn 15 and had to brake heavily to avoid hitting him, causing the 19-year-old Briton to lose time at the end of his lap.
Both drivers still ended up advancing to the third and final round of qualifying for the race, but Grosjean still ended up being penalized for what had transpired after he and Norris were called to the race stewards.
Here is what Norris had to say about the matter, particularly about Vettel’s role in it, according to ESPN.
"“If you look at the end result he did hold me up in the final corner. And for any driver you have to do as much as you can to make sure that doesn’t happen. He did get screwed over a bit by Sebastian, who overtook him into the final corner.“To be fair to him [Grosjean] only had three seconds or something for his team to tell him that I was behind if they didn’t already, and it would have been very hard for him to suddenly change his whole approach to basically giving up his whole lap. I don’t think he could have just stopped, he maybe could have done, but from what he said he didn’t know I was behind until I was pretty much about to crash into him.“I don’t really know what to say, Vettel screwed him over, which isn’t a very nice thing to do in terms of us being racers, we try to respect each other in terms of you’ve got a car ahead you don’t overtake them into the final corner like Magnussen and Fernando in Monza last year as you ruin both of your qualifying laps. I think he did what he could when he knew but he did impede me.”"
Meanwhile, Vettel was summoned to the stewards after the qualifying session concluded as well, he was not issued any kind of penalty. The 31-year-old German is still set to start the race in second place alongside teammate Charles Leclerc, whose pole position for this race is the first pole position of his Formula 1 career.
ESPN2’s live broadcast of the Bahrain Grand Prix is scheduled to air from Bahrain International Circuit beginning at 11:00 a.m. ET tomorrow, so be sure not to miss the 2019 Formula 1 season’s second race.