Hamilton calls for relaxing track limits

Lewis Hamilton has suggested track limits should be relaxed after Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had laps deleted in qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix.

Norris had set the second fastest time in his McLaren before stewards ruled he’d run too wide at Turn 10 almost five minutes after he completed his lap – as he was preparing to complete the parc ferme television interviews.

That saw George Russell promoted to second and Piastri to third, only for the Australian to have his lap deleted for running off the road at Turn 14 soon after.

However, in that instance, the delay in making the ruling meant the McLaren driver did front the television interview, during which he learned his lap had been deleted.

“So I’m not P3 any more,” he said afterwards.

“I think I’m P6. So yeah, there you go.

“Obviously a shame but, yeah. Car felt reasonable, just pushed a little bit hard on the last lap.”

Norris fell to 10th as a result of his lap’s deletion, his earlier Q3 effort having also seen him leave the track, while Piastri will line up sixth.

With the Australian promoted to and then relegated from third, it was fifth-fastest Hamilton who joined pole-sitter Max Verstappen and George Russell in the top three FIA press conference.

There, the seven-time world champion questioned the need for track limits following work to the Lusail circuit since F1 last visited in 2021.

“The new kerbs, I think these kerbs are great,” he said.

“I went around the track yesterday on my scooter and I thought the kerbs were quite big, but I actually think they’re really food.

“When you go beyond the highest point of the kerb, you lose time.

“I feel like, at this track, we don’t need to have track limits,” he added.

“It’s something that was brought in a couple of years ago and it’s, um… Yeah.

“Lando should be up here.”

In recent seasons, track limits have been more stringently applied, with the white line delineating the edge of the racing surface.

While that has addressed much of the confusion among fans it has not eliminated the problem, as demonstrated at the Austrian Grand Prix this year.

There, 47 laps were deleted for track limits in qualifying, while race control reviewed more than 1200 reports of violations in the grand prix itself.

That saw Aston Martin protest the result in a messy situation that saw a number of penalties subsequently applied to the final classification.

In Austria, the layout of the circuit is a significant contributing factor given it needs to accommodate both Formula 1 and MotoGP.

The same is true of the Lusail venue in Qatar, though Hamilton suggests the kerbing is an improvement and should be adopted elsewhere.

Doing so, he reasoned, would allow officials to turn a blind eye to track limits in otherwise problem areas.

“I think we can take this kerbs as good learning,” the Mercedes driver explained

“ We can take these kerbs to a bunch of other tracks because obviously MotoGP are fine with these kerbs and we can have these in, like, Austria, for example.

“When you go beyond them, you lost time, so it shouldn’t be the white line necessarily.”

Laps deleted in Qualifying

Qualifying 3 timeline

20:48 GREEN LIGHT – PIT EXIT OPEN
20:52 CAR 4 (NOR) TIME 1:24.088 DELETED – TRACK LIMITS AT TURN 5 LAP 18 20:51:04
20:52 CAR 16 (LEC) TIME 1:52.292 DELETED – TRACK LIMITS AT TURN 5 LAP 22 20:50:42
21:00 CHEQUERED FLAG
21:00 FIRST CAR TO TAKE THE FLAG – CAR 14 (ALO)
21:04 CAR 4 (NOR) TIME 1:24.074 DELETED – TRACK LIMITS AT TURN 10 LAP 21 20:59:41
21:08 CAR 81 (PIA) TIME 1:24.228 DELETED – TRACK LIMITS AT TURN 14 LAP 23 21:00:36