Dishing out seven in-race penalties in Qatar, including a race-wrecking 10-second stop-go penalty to Lando Norris, George Russell says there was “zero indication” for the weekend that the stewards would turn to the most severe punishments.

This year Formula 1’s stewards have made headlines all too often, most notably in Austin and Mexico when Max Verstappen and Lando Norris went wheel-to-wheel for the World title.

The Qatar GP stewards didn’t hold back

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

This led to discussions in Mexico and again in Qatar where tweaks to the driving guidelines were debated with new FIA race director Rui Marques involved in the latest round of conversation.

But in the midst of all that, at no point did Marques give the drivers a heads up that his stewards for Qatar were going to take a hard line on any infringements.

And a hard line is what they took.

Six drivers were penalised on the night including both Mercedes drivers. Lewis Hamilton received two penalties, the first for jumping the start and the second for speeding in the pit lane bringing his tally to 15 seconds, while Russell received a five-second for a Safety car infringement.

But it was Norris who was hit the hardest when he didn’t slow for yellow flags for debris on the track. He was hit with a 10-second stop-go penalty that ruined his race.

Although McLaren team principal Andrea Stella concedes the penalty was “deserved” as Norris hadn’t slowed, he said it “lacked any specificity and proportion”.

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Russell, the director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, says the drivers weren’t given any warning that the stewards intended to be harsher than usual in penalising infringements.

“There was zero indication that they wanted to be much harsher,” he told the media including PlanetF1.com. “I don’t even know what all the penalties were for, I need to review that now.

“I don’t even know what my penalty is for, it’s something to do with the Safety Car, but I don’t know when or how or why. So, yeah, I’ll have a look and see.”

The Mercedes driver was also questioned about Race Control and where he was concerned it had been ‘stretched a little bit too thin’.

“No, but I’ll have a look, I’ll review it all now and see,” he replied.

This weekend Formula 1 race director Marques had to pull double duty after Janette Tan, who who had been appointed as Marques’ successor as F2’s race director, left the post even before her first race in charge.

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