Giedo van der Garde didn’t hold back in his verdict on the Bahrain GP, calling Lando Norris’ grid box error an “incredibly stupid mistake”, while he also wasn’t impressed with FOM’s coverage of Oscar Piastri’s win.

Piastri lined up on pole position at the Sakhir circuit before recording a maiden career hat-trick as he also set the fastest lap and won the Grand Prix.

‘Stupid mistake’ from Lando Norris, and FOM made Piastri ‘invisible’

He took the chequered flag 15 seconds ahead of George Russell with Norris third, eight-tenths down on the Mercedes driver.

It could’ve been a McLaren 1-2 were it not for a five-second time penalty that eradicated Norris’ epic start off the line.

The Briton was penalised for a false start as it was noted that he was out of position in the pit box with his front tyres over the white line.

“I think at the beginning I was too far back,” he explained, “so I tried to creep forward and crept forward and did the opposite.

“First time I’ve ever done this in my life. Shouldn’t happen, but it did – and I paid the price for it.”

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Although the stewards would have noted it themselves, keeping an eagle-eye on track proceedings, Norris was also snitched on by his good friend and title rival Verstappen.

Seventh on the grid, one place back from Norris, the Dutchman had a good view and told Red Bull: “Lando is over his grid box.”

“I would say so too,” Van der Garde told Viaplay. “You just see it in front of you.

This is really such an incredibly stupid mistake by Norris. This must not happen.

“You know how to stand in the starting area, and how far forward you can stand. You have that yellow line, and you have to be in that starting area. How many times has he done this?”

Norris wasn’t the only one Van der Garde took aim at after the Grand Prix as the Dutchman was also fuming at Formula One Management [FOM] for their coverage of Piastri’s race win.

Instead of switching the main screen to the Australian driver as he completed the final few corners, his victory was on the upper left side of the screen while the world feed focused on the Russell versus Norris battle.

It was a battle that had, barring a huge mistake from Russell, been decided earlier in the lap when Norris attacked into Turn One, not only unable to pull off the move but losing vital tenths to Russell in the process.

The main footage still stayed on that battle.

“He was invisible, yes!” Van der Garde said of Piastri’s race. “In terms of times, he was visible, because he drove so consistently.

“The FOM didn’t even show at the end of the race that he crossed the start-finish line. We didn’t even see him cross the finish line. This was really unacceptable.

“He had a super good weekend. He took a strong pole position, and had everything under control in the race. He had a good start and made zero mistakes. He really had a top race.”

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