For anyone who thought a shortened race meant less to talk about – Suzuka proved otherwise. Lando Norris has participated in one such debate.

Singapore GP was delayed by 65 minutes after rain battered Marina Bay Street Circuit. The race was resultantly cut short and ran under a timer. It ended up finishing in 59 laps against the normal 61 laps.

A similar scenario turned up in Japan. Relentless rains inundated Suzuka, leading to a red flag after two laps of racing. This was followed by a 2-hour delay. Finally, only a 40-minute race could be completed with just 28 laps run, against the normal 53.

Criticism streamed in from all corners to the FIA as to why racing was not allowed in the rain. The primary argument was – if Pirelli, the official tire manufacturer, provides rain tires, why not allow racing in the rain?

Lando is not in agreement with what outsiders have to say

However, the McLaren driver, Lando Norris, chimed in with his own views.

The Brit, providing a strong rebuke to those sitting outside and commenting, said, “The difficult thing is not that it’s too wet but that it’s difficult to see anything at all. Those are two different things. In qualifying, those conditions would be perfectly fine and I would love to race.”

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“But when you start 10th on the grid and you can’t see anything. And you can say ‘it didn’t look that bad on TV’. But if you say something like that, you have to keep your mouth shut because the risk we take to race in those conditions, it’s crazy.”

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“You also don’t see when someone stops in front of you. I didn’t see Carlos’ crash. If I’d been a meter to the left, I’d have crashed right into him because you just can’t see anything,” he told Motorsport-Total.com,

Norris makes a fair point. It is impossible for people sitting at home to understand the problems the drivers face with visibility. The FIA, or rather Pirelli, needs to work on reducing spray if they want F1 races in tough conditions like these.

Lando Norris gets backing from around the grid on the horrifying incident

Another much-discussed incident from Japan was the crane/tractor fiasco. Carlos Sainz spun off and hit the barriers in the first lap. The race was red-flagged. But since the incident occurred in Sector 1, cars were making their way to the pitlanes. Controversially, management decided to send a crane to pick up Sainz’s Ferrari and clear the debris.

The crane was positioned on the racing line, which drivers felt was unsafe. Norris tweeted “Wtf. How’s this happened!? We lost a life in this situation years ago. We risk our lives, especially in conditions like this. We wanna race. But this… Unacceptable.”

Pierre Gasly, penalized for driving too fast under a red flag, said “We lost Jules eight years ago in similar conditions with a crane on track in the gravel. I don’t understand how eight years [later] in similar conditions, we can still see a crane, not even in the gravel but on the racing line.”

“Not respectful towards Jules, his family and his loved ones, and all of us,” he said sadly.

Similar emotions were echoed by other drivers and team bosses as well.

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What happened with Jules Bianchi was a deeply saddening and unfortunate incident. To make the same mistake paints the FIA in a very bad light. Gasly was right to be infuriated by the decision.