Nico Hulkenberg was given two penalties by the Chinese Grand Prix stewards for overtaking other drivers while behind the Safety Car and Virtual Safety Car.
The Renault driver was given a five second time penalty for overtaking Romain Grosjean while the Virtual Safety Car was deployed. Two minutes later he overtook Marcus Ericsson during the Safety Car period and incurred a ten second time penalty.
Hulkenberg, who finished 12th, was also given a pair of two-point penalties on his licence. He now has a total of six, putting him halfway towards the twelve necessary for a one-race ban.
However the stewards did not penalise eighth-placed Kevin Magnussen for driving too slowly behind the Safety Car. Following an investigation they “took into account that car 20 was experiencing technical difficulties which resulted in the reduction in speed”.
Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez were also given reprimands for failing to attend the national anthem ceremony at the required time. The stewards noted the reprimands were not “imposed for a driving infringement”. The reprimand is the second of the season for Perez and Ricciardo’s first.
This article will be updated.
Ivan Vinitskyy (@ivan-vinitskyy)
9th April 2017, 9:57
“reprimands for failing to attend the national anthem ceremony” – that’s a thing they can do?
With so many totalitarian governments on the calendar, I’m not sure I’d want to respect all of them.
Is it not my personal opinion? After all it’s money that brings F1 in the country and they can’t buy respect with that too.
@F1-liners (@f1-liners)
9th April 2017, 11:34
Not sure if ignoring/disrespecting the national anthem is the right way to be vocal against a totalitarian regime.
Ignoring the ‘totalitarian leader’ in the green room is much more powerful.
@ivan-vinitskyy
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
9th April 2017, 13:24
Leaving the issue of dodgy governments to one side (though the whole thing was brought in as a sop to Putin), forcing them to show up to listen to a national anthem strikes me as a silly waste of time. It was never needed before 2014, so why is it apparently essential now?
And as for giving the drivers a reprimand for it which could potentially affect their result in the competition at a later stage, that is just completely and utterly wrong.
Strontium (@strontium)
9th April 2017, 13:39
+1
faulty (@faulty)
9th April 2017, 17:59
So mote it be.
Ferrari, Seb fan
9th April 2017, 11:06
Isn’t there any footage showing that hulk overtook under the safety car/virtual safety car?
Simon (@weeniebeenie)
9th April 2017, 14:16
I remember in the latter half of last season they started showing replays of the incident that led to the penalties once they were announced, that unfortunately seems to have gone this year.
Ferrari, Seb fan
9th April 2017, 17:58
They show incident if a car is taken out but you’re right that don’t show a incident even if it is under investigation
Ferrari, Seb fan
9th April 2017, 22:14
*They
Yes (@come-on-kubica)
9th April 2017, 11:29
Given 2 penalties, still finishes ahead of Palmer. Renault got his strategy horribly wrong today.
Bleu (@bleu)
9th April 2017, 12:43
Five- and ten-second penalties seem surprisingly lenient for that offence but then, it would be good to see the footage first. Apparently both overtakes happened towards turn 1 so It might have been overtaking a car exiting the pits or just being overtaking someone at the time of deployment of (V)SC.
Hugh (@hugh11)
9th April 2017, 13:40
Would like to see some footage.
UnitedKingdomRacing (@unitedkingdomracing)
9th April 2017, 14:55
As for the second penalty I think it was actually shown as spun coming out the pits he overtook a car to regain his position, wasn’t he?
Gwan
9th April 2017, 16:55
What’s the rule on where the driver has to be in his grid box? Vettel was so far over – I assume the rule only applies to being too far forward then?
Bill Niehoff
9th April 2017, 20:21
What happened with VET being out of place on the starting grid?
MattDS (@mattds)
10th April 2017, 9:28
It was looked upon, and considered not to be a problem.