Vettel blamed for Grosjean-Norris incident

Both Romain Grosjean and Lando Norris pointed the finger of blame at Sebastian Vettel for the incident during Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying which left the Haas driver with a three-place grid penalty. Grosjean blocked Norris during Q1, but both said Vettel's actions had caused the incident.

Grosjean qualified eighth, but will start Sunday's race outside the top 10 after he was punished by stewards.

Vettel escaped punishment for driving too slowly on an in-lap during Q1, but the stewards were uninterested in the role he played in forcing Grosjean to slow at the final corner, with Norris fast approaching on a flying lap.

"I think it's Vettel that made a mess," Grosjean said. "He didn't respect the unwritten rule that you don't overtake before the last corner.

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😬😬😬 . A close call for @landonorris in Q1 . 3 grid place drop and 1 superlicense penalty point have been awarded to Grosjean for obstruction . #F1 #Formula1 #BahrainGP

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1) on Mar 30, 2019 at 11:13am PDT

"But he just went past all the queue, we were all waiting and obviously I wanted to go faster.

"He passed the queue, came in front of me so that gave me another three or four seconds to wait and that obviously we had not [anticipated] the fact that Vettel would do that, therefore we thought we were clear of Norris, and that's probably why they didn't tell me that Norris was on a flying lap."

Although furious in the heat of the moment, Norris was able to see things from Grosjean's point of view after qualifying.

He said: "Vettel screwed him over, which isn't a very nice thing to do in terms of us being racers, we try to respect each other in terms of you've got a car ahead you don't overtake them into the final corner like [Kevin] Magnussen and Fernando [Alonso] in Monza last year as you ruin both of your qualifying laps.

"I think he [Grosjean] did what he could when he knew but he did impede me.

"If I didn't get to do a second quali lap for whatever reason that would have been the reason I wouldn't have been in Q2."

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