Toto Wolff Reluctant to Fight for Lewis Hamilton, Lets Lando Norris Lap Reinstatement Go By Without Protest

Lando Norris beat Lewis Hamilton to secure pole position in the first Sprint Qualifying session of the season in China. However, there was a bit of drama involved as, initially, Norris had his fastest time of 1 minute and 57.940 seconds deleted for track limits, promoting Hamilton to the provisional pole position. But just before the session ended, race control reversed their decision, which saw Norris jump ahead of the 7-time champion, while Fernando Alonso came home in 3rd place.

What’s interesting to note is that Toto Wolff did not fight for Hamilton’s pole position despite Lando Norris getting all four tires off the track in the final corner. After the session was concluded, Rob Myers posted on X saying, “Toto is OK with the @fia reinstating Lando’s time. True to form, he’s not fighting for Hamilton…”

Another post from Junaid Samodien gave us Wolff’s comments after the session. “I haven’t seen the detail. I just saw that he was all four laps off the track, but the lap after was slower, so I am happy with that,” Wolff reportedly said.

The final part of qualifying was extremely chaotic, as the drivers had to adapt to changing conditions as the session progressed. What started as a dry first part of qualifying quickly turned into wet conditions when it started raining in SQ2. In SQ3, we saw several drivers, including Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen, and Oscar Piastri, going off-track due to the slippery circuit.

While Toto Wolff did not stand up to fight for Lewis Hamilton’s pole position, the McLaren team boss would have done that if necessary.

Andrea Stella was ‘ready to battle’ for Lando Norris

After the Sprint qualifying ended, Andrea Stella said that McLaren was ready to challenge the steward’s decision to delete Norris’ lap time. Although it’s common to delete lap times for track limit violations, there was nothing said by race director Niels Wittich about such penalties on this weekend. Therefore, the stewards had no basis for deleting Norris’s lap time.

“We were ready to battle that decision,” said Stella. “I think maybe that was deleted because Lando, on the previous lap, went off at the last corner. But actually, if you go out at the last corner on the previous lap, then you lose a lot of time in the following lap because you launch at a much lower speed. I guess race control realized that themselves and Lando deserve the pole position and it’s good that the lap has been reinstated.”

Lando Norris himself spoke about the difficult conditions in SQ3 in his post-qualifying interview with Alex Brundle. He acknowledged the importance of managing tire temperatures, among other things, as crucial to finding a decent lap time. He also explained how he had to abort his first two flying laps, leaving him with just one attempt to take the pole position, which he was quite happy about.

Do you think Toto Wolff should have raised concerns over race control’s decision to reinstate Norris’ lap time? Share your insights in the comments down below.