Pierre Gasly, who is racing under threat of a one-race ban, avoided collecting penalty points for a second incident in as many days in the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The AlphaTauri driver arrived in Brazil having already collected 10 penalty points on his licence, leaving him two away from an automatic race ban. In Saturday’s sprint race he was investigated for an infringement on his reconnaissance lap but escaped with a formal warning which added no penalty points to his licence.Gasly fell foul of the rules again in the race, breaking the 80kph pit lane speed limit by 1.8kph. The stewards handed him a five-second time penalty, which dropped him from 12th to 14th in the final results, but again chose not to issue any penalty points.
The stewards also penalised Max Verstappen and Lando Norris for their collisions with other drivers in the race. Both were given two penalty points on their licences in addition to five-second time penalties during the race.
Norris tangled with Charles Leclerc at Ferradura following the first restart on lap seven. The stewards held him entirely responsible for the collision.
“The stewards determined that Norris was on the inside at turn six when he touched the kerb at the apex and understeered into the car of Leclerc,” they explained. “The stewards determined that Norris was wholly at fault.”
Verstappen was not found entirely to blame for his collision with Hamilton, but received the same penalty as Norris. “The stewards determined that Verstappen attempted to pass Hamilton on the outside of turn one by braking very late. He did not complete the pass in turn one and his excess speed compromised his entry into turn two, at which point he made contact with Hamilton.
“While the stewards recognise that Hamilton could possibly have given a little more room at the apex of turn two, the stewards determined that Verstappen was predominantly at fault.”
Norris is now on a total of three penalty points, Verstappen has seven, Gasly remains on 10 until the end of May next year.
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Bleu (@bleu)
13th November 2022, 20:46
There’s normally no penalty points for speeding in the pit lane so it’s not like stewards made an exception to the norm this time.
Speeding in the pit lane can easily happen due to mechanical fault so I kind of understand that.
BasCB (@bascb)
14th November 2022, 0:05
Actually @bleu – every other driver this year who got a penalty for speeding in the pitlane this year got 2 penalty points, so they DID in fact make an exception.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
14th November 2022, 6:59
It’s like I said, we can just ignore penalty points, they will bend over backwards to not ban a driver for a race due to penalty points, it’s never happened before and even if it did would make no difference to alpha tauri’s championship battle.
Bleu (@bleu)
14th November 2022, 14:07
Here are three earlier pit lane speedings which occurred during the race this year. None of which have penalty points.
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2022%20Canadian%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20Offence%20-%20Car%204%20-%20Pit%20lane%20speeding.pdf
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2022%20Belgian%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20Offence%20-%20Car%2016%20-%20Pit%20lane%20speeding.pdf
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2022%20Dutch%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20Offence%20-%20Car%2024%20-%20Pit%20lane%20speeding.pdf
Including all sessions, in total drivers have been caught by speeding in pit lane 27 times this year. Stroll, Bottas and Gasly are the worst culprits with four times each, Tsunoda has three, Vettel and Perez twice with eight drivers committing once: Albon, Norris, Leclerc, Latifi, Zhou, Schumacher, Magnussen and Russell.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
13th November 2022, 21:28
My initial reaction was that he did these intentionally. Though I’m probably wrong – both are very safe ways to commit an offence and thus not have to race under threat of a ban when he joins Alpine. I guess it doesn’t matter now anyway, the opportunity is lost.
Alpha Tauri might not have cared too much if they could put Nyck De Vries in the car in Abu Dhabi but I don’t know what his contract situation is, it might be he’s all Mercedes until 1st Jan. If Alpha Tauri couldn’t put him in the car then I could understand Helmut keeping an eye on him and not being too happy if he believes Pierre was trying to get banned.
On the other hand, the advantages for Pierre and Alpine are obvious. But I guess we’ll never know now.
BasCB (@bascb)
14th November 2022, 0:07
We’ve seen this pretty much every time a driver gets in F1 gets close to that ban – they ditched Hamilton a few points last year when he was close. Now they have “spared” Gasly points again after doing so already yesterday.
How is a points system going to work when the fail safe way never to get a race ban is just sitting close to the limit with the Stewards every time finding some reasoning why you are the guy who does not get points when others have gotten and will get points for exaclty the same infringements.
This is a mess.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
14th November 2022, 7:02
Indeed, in my opinion in order to consider something seriously it needs to have happened before in f1’s recent history: championship going down to the wire? Very rare in recent times, after 2016 we have only 2021, all other times we have the title mathematically end earlier, so I’m not holding out hope it’s gonna happen again anytime soon, ferrari winning a title again? Not likely since red bull and mercedes’ rise, they’re simply better teams and haven’t been around as long as ferrari. Penalty points? If no one ever got banned for reaching 12, it’s not a serious threat for a driver who has 11. If it happened a few times, drivers would think twice before risking it.
Hiland (@flyingferrarim)
14th November 2022, 2:13
Don’t believe Max should have been penalized for that collision with Lewis. I think that was a racing incident at heart but more blame on Lewis as he did close the door on Max where Max was well along side. Overall, congrats to Merc for a good result.
MacLeod (@macleod)
14th November 2022, 8:29
It could be handled as a race incident but that corner is strange as it a 2 part the rules says you have to yield if you aren’t enough sideway. I think Lewis didn’t gave enough room (almost none) and Max couldn’t bail out (braking or cutting the corner without crashing each other massive)
Stuart Wallis
14th November 2022, 16:39
Think you need to go to Specsavers! There was no gap there, Max up to his usual tricks the same as Michael used to do, Max expects other cars to get out of the way for him as he’s so arrogant, not a nice person and a winger. Perez must be very angry!!
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage- Special Unhinged Edition (@davedai)
14th November 2022, 9:22
A one race ban for Pierre would be shattering. Here he is accumulating on average approx 1 WDC point per GP only to receive the final points resulting in the ban for speeding in pit lane. His WDC dream could just evaporate . After all he did admit he NOW understood after Japan that there could have been marshals or debris on the track while under reds, but apparently thinks pit lane is a personnel free zone and speed restrictions shouldn’t apply to him.
A one race ban : probably no points lost, no damage to car or others race compromised, an no additional penalty points. Reallyl Pierre it’s a win/win.
Jere (@jerejj)
14th November 2022, 11:06
He got lucky again, while Lando’s penalty was fully justified & Max’s not so much.