Doha (AFP) - Lando Norris said he did not see the yellow flags, signaling that he should slow down, which led to him receiving a crushing 10-second stop-go penalty that wrecked his hopes of success in Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver, who went from second to 15th as a result of the penalty, admitted that he did not lift off, but said he understood the rule.

“It’s a fair penalty,” he said. “It’s the rule.”

“But honestly, I don’t know what I did wrong.

“Apparently, I didn’t slow under the yellows.

“I am not an idiot and, if I saw a yellow, I would have slowed down. The rule is you have to slow down under the yellow, so it is a fair penalty.

“It’s an opportunity missed.”

Red Bull’s newly-crowned four-time world champion Max Verstappen won ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc with Oscar Piastri finishing third for McLaren.

McLaren had hoped to move closer to clinching the constructors’ championship for the first time since 1998, but ended the day leading Ferrari by 12 points with one race to go in Abu Dhabi next Sunday.

His McLaren race team boss Andrea Stella said he felt the race was unfolding ‘in a strong way’ for McLaren and he ‘felt optimistic’ but the result was ‘affected dramatically’ by the penalty.

“We checked the data and he stayed flat out,” he said. “The driver needs to recognize and to back off in those situations.

“But it was quite peculiar that it was deployed and then removed.”

He said the stewards had “lost any sense of proportion and specificity in the penalty” adding that they had not looked at the level of danger in that situation.

“The removal of the yellow flag and to then judge it with just a rule book full of dust … and then to apply it without any sense of critical approach,” he added. “It was an opportunity to do better for the FIA.”

The race director and race stewards were also widely criticised for failing to deploy a Safety Car immediately when an errant mirror from Kevin Magnussen’s Haas car was left lying on the main straight.

The double yellow flags were instead deployed, leading not only to Norris’s penalty, but also punctures for seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes and Carlos Sainz of Ferrari.

Verstappen slowed briefly on the straight and then asked his Red Bull team if Norris had slowed or continued flat out. It prompted stewards’ action.

It was a demanding first chaotic weekend for newly-installed race director Rui Marques following a spate of dismissals and departures at the FIA.