Lando Norris made cheeky request to replicate Michael Schumacher’s controversial F1 British GP win

Reigning Formula 1 world champion Lando Norris wanted to try and win the British Grand Prix by driving through the pit lane as the race ended behind the safety car. 

Sunday’s 52-lap race finished in anticlimactic circumstances behind the safety car after Max Verstappen’s late spin into the gravel at Stowe. 

Norris, who finished fourth, cheekily asked whether he could win the race by diving into the pits on the final lap.

“You’re not allowed to box are you? You can’t win it in the pit lane?” Norris queried over team radio. 

“No, you’re not,” came the response from his race engineer Will Joseph. 

Norris replied: “Shame.”

Drivers are not allowed to win a race by crossing the finish line through the pit lane, a rule that was changed following one of Michael Schumacher’s most controversial victories. 

Incidentally, this happened at the 1998 British Grand Prix, though it was around the old Silverstone layout which used the pit lane on the National Pits Straight. 

Schumacher dived into the pit lane on the final lap to serve a stop-and-go penalty, and crossed the finish line in doing so.

Schumacher was declared the winner but Ferrari’s interpretation of the regulations led to a post-race dispute as to whether the German had actually served his penalty. 

The stewards ultimately rescinded the penalty altogether after it was found they had made several mistakes, including exceeding the allowed time limit for the notification of a penalty having been issued. 

The extraordinary set of circumstances led to the three stewards involved all resigning. 

As a result, the FIA tightened up the regulations to ensure a repeat could not happen again. 

Norris benefitted from late issues for Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Verstappen to move up the order and take fourth after what had been a difficult race for McLaren. 

"Considering how not nice it’s felt out there, P4 and a P3 this weekend in the Sprint is quite remarkable, honestly,” Norris said when summing up his weekend. 

"Of course we were lucky today, but the race is also about finishing. It’s about reliability and not making mistakes. I don’t know what happened to Max and Kimi.

"Poor start today, I don’t know why, so we have to understand some things. Also the car just wasn’t very nice in any way whatsoever today, so we have a lot to improve.

"The positive is the results, and that’s really the only thing that matters at the end of the day, but the pace to get them was really, really not good. We need to take a big step forward."