Disappointed after finishing third, and facing a race ban, Lando Norris has hit out at the Red Bull Ring stewards for penalising him following his early encounter with Sergio Perez.
On a day the stewards appeared to be working harder than the teams, often imposing penalties just moments after an offence had been committed, a portent of what was to follow came as early as Lap 4, when Lando Norris was handed a 5s penalty for forcing Sergio Perez off track.
"At the entry of Turn 4, Perez and Norris were side by side," read the stewards statement. "Then on the exit Norris was judged not to give Perez enough room and Perez was forced off the track."
Handing Norris a 5s penalty, more worrying were the 2 penalty points which bring his 12 month total up to 10, just two away from a one-race ban.
In the eyes of most, including Mr Norris, it was a racing incident.
"I'm disappointed because it should've been second place," said the McLaren driver. "I thought that Lap 1 was just racing really," he added, referring to the fact that the incident happened on the first lap after the safety car period that followed Esteban Ocon's off.
"He tried to go around the outside, which was a bit stupid, and he just ran off the track himself, I didn't even push him," insisted the Briton. "I'm frustrated but I'm also happy with P3. We had very good pace."
"It's his risk to go round the outside, he knows there's gravel there," he subsequently explained to reporters. "You watch every other junior series and any time someone tries to go round the outside and doesn't commit to it they end up in the gravel. I didn't even squeeze him off," he insisted. "You understeer around the corner anyway, he should have expected he wasn't going to get it.
"I'm just annoyed, it cost us P2. We had the pace... Hamilton had a problem but we had the pace to be ahead of Bottas, at least, especially in the second stint.
"(I) would have loved to have been second, not third... just cementing myself a bit more.
"Just a bit annoyed by that... it's Lap 1, people are racing, he's tried something that hasn't worked."
As the stewards summoned over half the field to their offices for various offences, facing a potential race ban, Norris said that penalty points should only be handed out for things like dangerous driving.
"My approach of the incident in Baku with the red flag and not boxing when I should have done, I didn't put anyone in harm's way, in fact the opposite and I did everything safely," he said. "Why should I deserve penalty points for that?
"Why should I deserve penalty points today for someone going into the gravel?" he continued, "nothing I've done is dangerous.
"I feel like maybe in some cases you deserve an on-track penalty because you've done something bad in terms of racing and you just made a mistake, but then you have things that people do every now and then which is purely dangerous.
"So, if you do generally overtake in a yellow flag and do something that's just clearly a rule, that will put people in danger, then I understand penalty points for a driver. And if that adds up, you'll get a race ban.
"But for little things like this it's just stupid, in my opinion. It's not what Formula 1 should be and I would expect and hope that other people would back me up on this kind of opinion."
Indeed, sitting beside the youngster, former 'bad boy' Max Verstappen fully agreed.
"How many do you get, two? So if you would have six of these incidents, I don't think you deserve a ban for what he did today. It's just not correct," said the championship leader.
"I've been there myself," he added, "I've been at nine or ten points myself. It's how it goes.
"But I don't think with the things he got the penalty points for, let's say you would get to twelve, you don't deserve a ban for that.
"I said it before myself I think two years ago, we should look into that."
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