Hamilton in Norris admission after blasting Qatar track limits

Lewis Hamilton feels Lando Norris should not have not received the track limits lap-time deletion that cost him second in Qatar Grand Prix qualifying.

The Mercedes driver's lap was initially only good enough for P5 on the grid, with Norris initially on the second row before the stewards deleted his quickest lap due to exceeding track limits at Turn 10.

Instead of lining up for Sunday's race second behind pole-sitter Max Verstappen, Norris will now line up 10th with Hamilton eventually promoted to third behind George Russell after Oscar Piastri was also penalised.

However, Hamilton felt compatriot Norris's time should have stood, believing that the McLaren actually lost time by going off track.

Hamilton satisfied after achieving 'key' Qatar position

"When you go beyond the highest point of the kerb, we do lose time, so I'm not really sure at this track if we need to have track limits," the 2021 winner told media, including RacingNews365.

"It's something that the stewards brought in a couple of years ago, and Lando should be up here.

"Maybe we can take these kerbs to a bunch of other tracks because obviously, MotoGP are fine with these kerbs, and we can have these in Austria, for example.

"As I said, when you go beyond them, you should be able to utilise this as much as possible.

"But when you go beyond you lose time, so the white line [that marks track limits] shouldn't be necessary."

As for his own result, Hamilton felt the team had achieved a "key" result as it looks to try and increase its points gap to Ferrari in the Constructors' standings.

"It's great for the team to be on the first few rows, second and third," he explained to F1 TV.

"It was difficult at the beginning of the session, tricky conditions out there with the wind, but ultimately, it was a pretty average session.

"[The race pace] is not really known looking into the long runs, so it is a bit of a first for all of us.

"I'm just going to give it everything and try and make those points.

"It's great that we're ahead of the Ferraris, which is really, really key, so I'll try and back up George."

Hamilton has been summoned to see the stewards over in incident in Q1 where he failed to follow the race director's notes by not adhering to the 1:46.000 minimum lap-time in place.