Valtteri Bottas has been disqualified from the result of qualifying for the British Grand Prix after his team were unable to provide the required fuel sample from his car.
Teams are required to provide one litre of fuel from their cars for analysis after qualifying. However Alfa Romeo were unable to do this after Bottas came to a stop at the end of Q1.“The car was unable to provide the required fuel sample,” the stewards noted. “There were no mitigating
circumstances.” The stewards have granted Bottas permission to start the race. He will therefore line up 20th on the grid.
“It’s a shame,” said Bottas after qualifying. “Not much I can do for that.”
However he was encouraged by the performance his car showed since Alfa Romeo brought a package of upgrades this weekend.
“At least we made it through to Q2 this time and it was extremely close,” he said. “We made some steps from yesterday, so now we still need to wait ’til tomorrow, there we will see how’s the pace.”
“I definitely feel this step and I think today we managed to extract a bit more with the set-up,” he said.
Bottas’ team mate Zhou Guanyu was also investigated after the qualifying session. The stewards decided against penalising him for impeding Esteban Ocon.
However the stewards have penalised AlphaTauri for releasing Nyck de Vries into the path of Oscar Piastri during the qualifying session. The team has been fined €5,000 (£4,272) for the unsafe release.
“De Vries released from his pit stop location into the path of Piastri who was driving in the fast lane during the first qualifying session,” the stewards ruled. “De Vries had to drive through the working lane to avoid colliding with Piastri, at a time when the pit lane was damp with low grip. The stewards considered the release to be unsafe.
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Red Andy (@red-andy)
8th July 2023, 19:24
I thought Bottas grinding to a halt at the end of Q1 was a bit suspicious at the time. Is it still a requirement to return to the pits under your own power (the thing that got Hamilton DQ’d from Spain 2012 qualifying)?
Jere (@jerejj)
8th July 2023, 19:49
@red-andy Yes, & Seb got DQ’d for the same infringement in the same season Abu Dhabi GP qualifying, as he, of course, did in the 2021 Hungarian GP, so wholly consistent with previous similar instances.
Coventry Climax
8th July 2023, 21:36
My, that is worth mentioning, the FIA being consistent.
Although, in a sense, continuously not being consistent, is more consistent than just being consistent every once in a while. :-)
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
8th July 2023, 22:59
Thanks for explaining that. I thought the car had some sort of electrical problem, but now it seems it probably just ran out of fuel.