Raikkonen and Alonso given time penalties

2015 Russian Grand Prix

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Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso have been given time penalties following their incidents in the Russian Grand Prix.

Raikkonen was given a ten-second stop-go penalty for his collision with Valtteri Bottas on the last lap of the race, plus three penalty points on his licence. As he cannot serve the stop-go penalty, it is converted into a 30-second post-race time penalty.

The penalty moves Raikkonen back to eighth place and promotes Daniil Kvyat to fifth ahead of Felipe Nasr and Pastor Maldonado. It therefore means Mercedes have won the constructors’ championship.

Alonso was given a five-second penalty for disobeying track limits at turn 16. He drops from tenth place to eleventh behind Max Verstappen.

See the updated race result and drivers and teams points standings

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    Keith Collantine
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    65 comments on “Raikkonen and Alonso given time penalties”

    1. So Mercedes win the championship?

      1. If so it’s a shame that they will win it off air

        1. Perfect for Merc blackout

          1. *bangs head on desk repeatedly at the thought there are people that genuinely believe this*

        2. Why? Wasn’t it pretty clear they’d win it when they started the season?

          1. They still deserve to celebrate it and this is a bit of a muted celebration. It being predictable doesn’t stop it being an achievement to celebrate.

            1. They’ll party in Texas instead :)

    2. are mercedes now champions?

      1. It therefore means Mercedes have won the constructors’ championship.

    3. Feel for Alonso on that one, but he was warned about it over the radio.

      1. Well it was a private message

      2. I wonder if Eric Boullier has also called on the radio to Alonso
        GP2 Driver, GP2 driver, Aaaaargh ……

        1. Why on earth would he do that?

          1. As Alonso got on the radio in a report on an official warning for violating the track limits.

    4. If the reason that Kimi got a penalty was because Bottas had to retire, then it makes no sense.

      If the move had not been established fairly, the person should be punished like Kimi irrespective of whether or not the victim was able to continue racing.

      Kimi being a victim of such a move earlier in the season.

      1. Only Raikkonen fans think it’s the same thing to break the rear suspension of someone else’s car to just touch it slightly.

        1. Go watch Monaco again. Touching slightly my ss…

      2. Kimi got the penalty for causing the accident. Not because Bottas was unable to continue.

        Which is correct in that they give standard penalty for the offence but logically incorrect because effectively he still overtook Bottas and finished in the points.

        The logical penalty for causing an accident, in my mind, is to resume the race behind the innocent party. If the innocent party cannot continue then the guilty party cannot either.
        If in this case it is after the race was over Kimi should have been demoted to 12th. Those from originally classified as 9th to 12th moving up one.

    5. Pretty astonishing that with all his damage Verstappen still got a point.

      1. *Pretty lucky

    6. What a way to be crowned WCC……….

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        11th October 2015, 16:19

        It’s probably all politics.
        Merc already printed the t-shirts and therefore lobbied the stewards to demote Kimi to 8th!
        @davidnotcoulthard

        1. @coldfly If I were Daimler’s marketing department though, I’d rather the crowning happen at COTA on the track with the live feed still on (with the celebratory WCC T-shirts appearing in said feed) rather than off-air in Russia (seen rightly or wrongly by a significant number of people as Putinland).

          1. ColdFly F1 (@)
            11th October 2015, 16:34

            Agree (you probably noted a hint of sarcasm in my earlier comment). @davidnotcoulthard

            But looking at the bright side; now they can wear those t-shirts the whole COTA weekend, and probably replace them with a HAM WDC t-shirt on Sunday afternoon.

            1. @coldfly Yeah I didn’t quite bother writing the “OK this might be sarcasm but anyway” sentence, especially since the sarcasm wasn’t tha obvious to me yet……

    7. Kimi bottas incident looks similar to kimi Riccardo incident in Monaco 15 where Riccardo didn’t get any penalty..but it is what it is..

      1. @emsamateras Raikkonen threw his car at Bottas from miles back; Ricciardo was pulling alongside Raikkonen before the corner and Raikkonen came off his line, leading to contact between them. Furthermore Raikkonen’s move today put Bottas out – in Monaco neither driver was taken out. Substantial and significant differences between the two when it comes to placing blame.

        1. Yes, Kimi and Bottas are fighting WDC position, so attentions are required.
          If Kimi did that move in 2003 then probably double WDC already..just like Schumi in 1994..but no penalty back then?

          1. Not to mention Ricciardo in Hungary doing another banzai move on Rosberg after the Monaco debacle.

        2. Agreed. Sure, Bottas slammed his hand in the door with his wider entry, but the proximate cause was Kimi failing to secure enough of an advantage to make his line choice work without contact. He committed to a suboptimal line, but hoped to foil Bottas anyway by sliding onto and crowding him off the apex. Furthermore, he was going to have to straight-line that turn to some extent in order to have any exit speed and thus make the maneuver stick.

          He was completely reliant on Bottas backing down or making a mistake for that to work.

    8. FIA destroying the sport once again! Silly rules and post-gp decisions… Alonso certainly didn’t deserve this one and if the’re not in time with the penalties (ie in the race), they should Maybe punish him the next race. This is just plain stupid. Positions should never be changed behind a desk after the race God damnit!!!

      1. I guess you spent the entire race watching his onboard then. What a dull experience that must have been.

      2. So, if the FIA discovers in post-race scrutineering that Hamilton had a nine litre V12 engine, active suspension, an F-duct, traction control and ABS, they shouldn’t do anything about it?

        1. Yes, but it was a Honda 9 liter v12, so he didn’t really gain much.

        2. Well said!

      3. Oh no! People were penalised for breaking the rules! What craziness will come next?

    9. ILuvSoundtracks (@)
      11th October 2015, 15:37

      Damn.

    10. Someone should show Kimi this video because this is how a true racer does it!!! :P
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzFDvZhntvQ

      1. To be fair, the braking zone is much longer at Monza. But yeah it’s a great overtake :)

    11. Would have been much better to give Kimi a ten place grid drop on the next race + 3 penalty points

      1. @paeschli Actually I think it’s fairer to penalize him here, because it penalizes him of the points he gained by his move. If he is not penalized today, he keeps the points he gained permanently. While a grid drop at the next race makes it more challenging for him to score good points at that time, we have seen that Merc, Ferrari and Williams drivers can make their way up the grid into good points paying finishing positions despite back of the grid starting slots. If that were to happen then he would have escaped essentially scot free from his dive-bomb battering of Bottas. In this way, a known and permanent penalty is applied through the definite loss of points. I do agree that penalty points should be assessed against his superlicense in any case.

        1. @slowhands

          My logic was that giving him a penalty next race would help Bottas, given close both cats often are on track. Bottas doesn’t care if Kimi gets penalised or not this round, his race is ruined anyway.

          1. *given how close both cars

            New phone, sorry…

    12. Oh COME ON FIA!

      Why, oh why, penalise Alonso? Why? He had a warning, yes, but that was all!

      We never ever again heard “You got a penalty” on the radio, nor we saw in the race control that
      Fred is under investigation for track limits.

      Just as Massa on Brazil 2013 “Unbelievable FIA, unbelievable, unacceptable, unbelivable!!!”

      1. The time for the Alonso “not respecting track limits” incident was 15:38 (stewards document 41), so it was in the last few laps, which would be why it was dealt with after the race.

        http://www.fia.com/file/34975

        1. Here is Stewards document 45, with the penalty for “Leaving the track in turn 16”

          http://www.fia.com/file/35013

      2. Alonso got a warning and clearly continued to do it, which was obviously only discovered after the race. It’s harsh, for sure, especially being his 250th race, but ultimately rules are rules and they need to be enforced fairly, which they were.

        1. Or as anon said above, discovered very near the end of the race.

    13. To be honest, that penalty for Alonso should have been handed to designers of this… *clears throat* race track. It simply shouldn’t be possible to cut turn 16 and gain an advantage.

      1. @andae23 I completely agree. I noticed many of the drivers were cutting corners occasionally throughout the race. It shouldn’t be able to happen really.

        1. You do know corner cutting isn’t limited to Tarmac Tilkedromes? Most circuits have corners that can be cut.

    14. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
      11th October 2015, 16:07

      Did it really give Alonso any advantage, he was still only ahead the manors and verstappen.

      1. @come-on-kubica If he gained time from it then he gained an advantage, yes.

        1. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
          11th October 2015, 21:55

          But he has a GP2 engine?!

          1. In that case, let’s enter a car with a one-litre engine from an 80s hatchback. Then we’ll just to a 100ft loop around he startline and win the race, and it’ll be fair because the engine is only a one-litre from an 80s hatchback.

    15. I think a grid penalty would have been more appropriate, like in the case of the Hülkenberg/Massa crash.

      1. Difference is that Raikkonen finished the race in the points. And there’s no guarantee that Raikkonen will be fighting for the points in the next race to warrant a grid drop instead of a time penalty. If you want a similar situation take Europe 2012 when Maldonado wiped Hamilton out yet finished in the points, only to lose the position (to his team mate iirc) afterwards.

    16. Racing incident last lap effort, drama everyone wants to see.

      Would Hamilton get penalty fot taking out Rosberg like that?

      1. Simple answer…Yes!

        1. And would Rosberg get a penalty for taking out Hamilton like that? We know the answer to that too.

          1. The answer being, of course, ‘Yes’.

    17. Somehow it seems somewhat unfair that Kimi gets even 4 points for this race while Valtteri gets none.
      Bottas would have closed to within 5 points of Raikkonen for 4th in the drivers standings an now Kimi pulls a further 4 in front.

    18. Pretty silly from Alonso, considering he was warned beforehand. Especially today that it cost him a point, which in the current state of McLaren is a lot.

    19. Little surprised Kimi did not receive a harsher penalty, Bottas could have been seriously injured.

      1. @6speed Let’s not overreact here. It was a silly move, but not that silly. As far as silly moves go, this was somewhat tame. It never looked like Bottas was even remotely close to being in danger.

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