Zhou Guanyu has explained the reason why he collected four pit lane speeding penalties in yesterday’s one-hour final practice session.
He was found to have broken the 60kph pit lane speed limit on four occasions – registering 63kph, 62.5kph, 61kph and 60.2kph – during the session.Zhou explained he had misheard a radio message from his team after an earlier offence. “After the first or second one, I think I had a misunderstanding with the team radio,” Zhou said in response to a question from RaceFans.
“I thought they told me to release the pit limiter earlier. But rather than that I think was the opposite way round. So that’s where I went wrong.”
Zhou’s race engineer Joern Becker warned him halfway through the final practice session to “remember speed limit – you were releasing too early.”
The Alfa Romeo driver’s errors incurred a total of €800 (£695) in fines for his team. Unusually another driver, Logan Sargeant, also incurred multiple speeding penalties in the same session, collecting €300 in fines.
Lewis Hamilton also transgressed during final practice, hitting 65.5kph which led to a €600 fine for Mercedes. His team mate was fined for the same reason the day before.
However Yuki Tsunoda committed a more serious transgression on Friday. The AlphaTauri driver was given a formal warning after failing to activate his pit lane speed limiter and hitting 76.2kph in the pits.
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RandomMallard
28th May 2023, 9:09
Is it just me, or does it feel like there have been an unusually high number of pit lane speeding offences this weekend? I know Monaco has a lower speed limit than most other circuits, but still, it seems like many drivers have broken the limit this weekend, far more than normal.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
28th May 2023, 9:34
How do you break the limit 4 times in one session and not aquire a single penalty point?
I luv chicken
28th May 2023, 11:45
It’s obvious, that we now need FIA mandated speedometers, installed on the cars. You know, the analog ones, circular, under glass, like on a late 40s Mercury,
or even like a 1970’s Chevy, that goes across the whole cockpit, with a flaming red needle, to indicate speed.