Yuki Tsunoda has been given an official warning, and his AlphaTauri team fined, after the driver exceeded the pit lane speed limit during practice in Monaco today.
He was found to have exceeded the pit lane speed limit, which is set at 60kph for this event, by 16.2kph. AlphaTauri was fined €1,000 (£868), in line with the standard pennalties issued when a driver exceeds the pit lane speed limit in practice.However the stewards also took the rare step of issuing a warning to Tsunoda. They did this after discovering he failed to activate his pit lane speed limiter when he headed to his garage with suspected damage during the session.
“Car 22 exceeded the pit lane speed limit which is set at 60 kph for this event by 16.2 kph,” the stewards noted. “The car was entering the pits having struck the barrier at turn 11 [chicane] and the stewards were concerned that speeding in a pit lane by over 16 kph when there was unknown damage to the car was potentially dangerous.
“The driver acknowledged that he failed to engage the pit speed limiter and understood the potential of the situation. The stewards issued a warning in addition to the mandated fine.”
Last year Tsunoda became the first driver to collect a 10-place grid penalty as a result of receiving five reprimands over the course of the season. However warnings do not lead to any larger penalties as they are accumulated.
George Russell was also found to have broken the speed limit during practice today, by just 0.2kph. Mercedes were fined €100 (£86).
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Jere (@jerejj)
26th May 2023, 19:02
Forgetting to activate the pit limiter is an unusual error.
No wonder he got warned alongside the standard financial team sanction & as a side note, I don’t get why that marshal stood unnecessarily close to the racing line during both sessions.
SteveP
26th May 2023, 19:24
I see the stewards were determined to show how accurate their measuring equipment is
falken (@falken)
26th May 2023, 19:52
“during practice in Monday today.”
Does anyone care any more at F1 Fanatic or is it just a race to spam out as many articles as possible?
Markus
26th May 2023, 22:31
Was thinking the same. Good job for a proof reader if it was paid.
Scotty (@rockonscotty)
26th May 2023, 21:48
Yes I get safety, but wouldn’t shouldn’t a pit speed limiter be considered a driver aid? I say outlaw them and let’s see how accurate the drivers can be after fighting 30 laps.
Scotty (@rockonscotty)
26th May 2023, 21:48
Would love the edit button.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
27th May 2023, 10:21
I recall reading somewhere the pitlane speed limiter is calibrated by the Stewards to exactly 80.0 km/hr at the usual race tracks, so presumably they are responsible for setting it to 60.0 km/h at Monaco. So there might be wiggle room in this because if the Pit Lane Speed Limiter had been controlling the speed of the car for some distance, i.e. the car wasn’t still braking when the speed measurement was done, then maybe the Pit Lane Speed limiter calibration hadn’t been done with sufficient accuracy.