The Alfa Romeo team has questioned why Lando Norris escaped a penalty for incorrectly entering the pitlane during the chaotic finish to the Russian Grand Prix.
Norris was on track for his first ever Formula One race win when rain hit the track in Sochi, turning the finish of the grand prix into a lottery.
The McLaren driver initially tried to stay out on his slick tyres while the rest of the field switched to intermediates, but the rain became too heavy for him to continue.
Norris slid off the track as he was passed by Lewis Hamilton for the lead, and headed for the pitlane at the end of that lap.
But he had so little grip that he failed to negotiate a 90 degree bend in the pitlane, simply skating over the white line and back onto the track. After regaining control he crossed the unbroken line into the pitlane.
Such an offence is normally an automatic penalty, as the Sky commentators noted at the time.
"You can't come back," said former driver Paul di Resta.
"He's gone back into the pits and that is going to earn him a penalty," added David Croft.
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Remarkably, stewards chose to issue Norris with a reprimand, rather than the usual five second penalty, which would have dropped him from seventh to ninth.
The stewards took into account the fact that Norris had slowed considerably for the turn, and that crossing the line wasn't intentional.
That has Alfa Romeo boss Fred Vasseur seeing red.
"I'm very sad for Lando, because he did a fantastic weekend in Sochi," Vasseur told Motorsport.com.
"But then it's not because you like the guy and he deserved to win that we have to change the rule. The rule is crystal clear, that if you cross the line, you have to be penalised.
"It was the case on tons of occasions, for 10 times less than this, with [Yuki] Tsunoda in Spielberg, with (Kimi) Raikkonen last year in Mugello. And exactly the same condition with Lewis (Hamilton) in Hockenheim in 2019."
Tsunoda was twice penalised during the Austrian Grand Prix for simply touching the white line on pit entry, an offence that carried absolutely no danger to those around him, unlike Norris.
"I will say that it's even worse in these conditions," he said. "Because when Tsunoda put a wheel on the white line in Spielberg, it was not a safety issue, it was not a gain of time, because like when you are at the pit exit you go straight if you touch the white line, you are not faster. But he got penalised.
"And nobody complained about this that day, because the rule was clear, you put the wheel on the line, you are penalised.
"Last week, the advantage for Lando was mega. Because in this situation either you take five seconds or you do another lap in the wet on slicks, and you're losing perhaps 25 seconds.
"Now we are starting to find let's say, not reasons, but the explanation around the incident, and we are looking stupid."
Alfa Romeo would have been one of the teams to benefit had Norris been penalised, as Raikkonen would have been promoted from eighth to seventh.
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