Sergey Sirotkin, Williams, Baku City Circuit, 2018

Sirotkin given grid penalty for Spanish Grand Prix

2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix

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Sergey Sirotkin has been given a three-place grid penalty for the next race for his collision with Sergio Perez in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The Williams driver will be docked three places on the grid at the Spanish Grand Prix as the stewards held him responsible for the first-lap collision. Perez went on to finish third.

“The driver of car 35 [Sirotkin] drove into the back of car 11 [Perez],” the stewards noted. “The stewards determined that the driver of car 35 was wholly to blame for the collision.”

Sirotkin was also given two penalty points on his licence for the crash. Following the contact with Perez he tangled with Nico Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso, suffering race-ending damage.

“It was such a mess in the first few corners,” he said. “I was between two cars heading into turn three and I was just slowly and progressively squeezed between the two cars, as I was in the middle.

“At a point I saw I was not going to avoid a crash so I just lifted, hoping they would squeeze me but not hit me that much, but then already there was nothing I could do. We touched, my car jumped and when I landed, I broke my front suspension and my wing.

“I am just really sorry for this, as it is such a long race, but I understand that we all want to gain positions at the start, which is important. It is a shame in a race in such conditions. Parking the car in turn three is not the best feeling.”

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Keith Collantine
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17 comments on “Sirotkin given grid penalty for Spanish Grand Prix”

  1. Sirotkin looked like he could’ve had a good weekend if not for Sainz knocking him into Alonso. Shame.

    I hope he gets a chance to show his pace once again, because he’d definitely looked racier than Stroll (which isn’t saying much, but I don’t think Sirotkin is a complete write-off).

    1. @sundark Hulkenberg to be precise.

  2. Sirotkin was on for a good weekend but i believe it was the Hulk that moved across on them both. So Sirokin gets the penalty for being pinched, not fair. Just imagine were Alonso may have finished without the double flats and Sirotkin may also have been in the points

    1. You got the wrong incident. This one was with Perez. From the quote it even seems Sirotkin himself misunderstood and commented on the other incident with Hulkenberg and Alonso instead of the one he got the penalty for!

  3. He gets a penalty for an incident actually triggered by another driver (in this case Hulkenberg) rather than him himself, LOL.

    1. @jerejj No, he got penalty for his contact with Perez earlier, not the contact with Hulk and Alonso.

      1. In that case, why didn’t Hulkenberg get a penalty for his contact with Sirotkin, which put him out of the race & which subsequently damaged Alonso car?

        1. @ KGN11
          Because he didn’t do anything unreasonable. There wasn’t enough room for three cars alongside each other, so it was a racing incident.

          1. As you can see in that video, he did crash into Sirotkin when Sirotkin had given him plenty of space, which put 1.5 cars out of the race (Alonso got severe damage and was very close to retiring). That looks quite unreasonable to me.

      2. @sonicslv, that does now seem to have been corrected, but it does feel like a particularly harsh decision.

        He might have hit the back of Perez’s car, but when you compare that incident to the clash between Kimi and Ocon, or the way in which Hulkenberg bumped him into Alonso, let alone the Ricciardo-Verstappen clash or the complaints Gasly is making about Magnussen shoving him into a wall, what Sirotkin did seems to be the tamest incident of the lot, yet the most harshly penalised.

        1. Indeed. This was at the very beginning, and most messy part of, the race, and if the other 2 incidents which happened shortly after this one were given a pass, this should’ve been given a pass too.

        2. Don’t forget Ericsson parking his Sauber straight into Mag’s Haas on lap 1 turn 2. This is similat to Sirotkins mistake, but as far as I know Ericsson have not achieved a grid penalty..

  4. 1)RAI vs OCO crash, 1 car out – no further acctions.
    2)RIC vs VER crash, 2 cars out – both drivers reprimanded.
    3) SIR tangled PER crash, both continued – grid position penalty, points on license.
    Stewardism at it’s finest.

    1. I agree with your sarcasm. I think that the stewards have been too lenient on racing collisions in recent times, whereas silly non-race related things have been punished (such as Brendon Hartley being penalised during the warm up lap a couple of races ago).

      There wasn’t any on-board from the Hulk’s car shown when he squeezed Sirotkin into Alonso … unsure as to why that happened; it appeared there was no investigation into that incident – why?

  5. If sirotkin got a 3 place penalty, than verstappen should have a race ban.

  6. He’s bad driver without experience,I’m sure Massa would avoid the crash !
    Maybe you can buy aseat in F1 but you never buy a skills and talent ..
    Sorry Sirotkin

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