McLaren fined €30,000 after taped-over button delayed Norris car recovery in Monaco

McLaren have been fined €30,000 by FIA stewards after it was found that transparent tape placed over a mandatory safety button on Lando Norris’s car prevented marshals from recovering the MCL40 during second practice at the Monaco Grand Prix, forcing a red flag that disrupted the session.

Norris’s car came to a halt in the run-off area at the Nouvelle Chicane by the harbourside. Under normal circumstances, a virtual safety car would have been sufficient to manage the situation, but marshals were unable to trigger the car’s clutch disengagement system (CDS) — a device required by Article C9.3 of the F1 regulations to allow a stationary car to be safely moved within 15 minutes. The session had to be stopped entirely as a result.

Norris attended a stewards’ hearing two hours after FP2 concluded, accompanied by McLaren sporting director Will Courtenay and technical director Neil Houldey. FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis and technical delegate Jo Bauer were also present.

“The team admitted that for aerodynamic purposes, it had placed transparent tape over the button that is required to be pressed to activate the CDS,” the stewards’ verdict read. “This, in the opinion of the FIA representatives and admitted by the team, completely defeated the purpose of the CDS system, which is designed to be activated quickly by a marshal wearing protective gloves. The team conceded that it was not possible to break the tape and press the button by hand without the use of a tool.”

Of the €30,000 fine, only €10,000 has been suspended for 12 months, pending no further breaches. That compares unfavourably with a similar incident at the Canadian Grand Prix, where Racing Bulls were fined the same total amount but had €20,000 suspended after Liam Lawson’s car stopped during practice. In that case, the CDS failed because it was interconnected with another system on the car that had malfunctioned — an unintentional technical failure rather than a deliberate modification.

The stewards explicitly noted the harsher proportioning of the suspended element in McLaren’s case. “The stewards have determined to suspend a lower amount of this penalty compared to a breach of this same regulation at the previous event, because that breach, and the subsequent penalty, should have alerted all teams to the importance of the CDS,” they said.

The ruling underlines the FIA’s position that the clutch disengagement system is a non-negotiable safety requirement, and that aerodynamic considerations cannot justify compromising a marshal’s ability to clear a car from a live circuit.