Lance Stroll has been given two penalty points on his licence for crashing into Daniel Ricciardo during the Chinese Grand Prix.
The Aston Martin driver was also given a 10-second penalty for running into the back of the RB driver as they approached the turn 14 hairpin during the first Safety Car period.The queue of cars ahead of the drivers slowed as they approached the corner. Stroll hit the back of the RB squarely, sending it into Oscar Piastri’s McLaren ahead of them.
The stewards ruled Stroll should have realised the cars ahead were about to slow.
“The cars were all travelling slowly to set up for the restart of the race towards the end of a Safety Car period,” they noted. “The car in front of car 18 [Stroll] slowed down to take the corner and also to try to match the pace of the group of cars in front of it. Car 18 then collided with car three [Ricciardo].
“We determined that car 18 ought to have anticipated the pace of the cars in front, particularly car 3 and should have prepared to brake accordingly. Had it done that, it would have avoided the collision. Hence car 18 was predominantly to blame for the collision that ultimately led to car three having to retire from the race.”
Ricciardo suffered significant damage to his diffuser and floor but remained on-track for the restart. However the loss of downforce cost him a significant amount of rear-end grip, and he was quickly passed by a string of rivals, then pulled into the pits to retire.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
The RB driver believes his rival wasn’t paying attention in the seconds before they collided. “It’s a restart so we don’t know what the leader’s going to do,” Ricciardo told Sky. “So you have to be as vigilant as ever and be prepared for any situation. I could see it was obviously bunching up into the hairpin so everyone’s backing up.
“But then obviously how hard he’s hit me and pretty much put half his car under mine, it wasn’t a judgement, he was miles off. That for me, there’s honestly no excuse. What’s frustrating is I watched his onboard and he’s not even looking at me. You can see his helmet, he’s looking at the apex of the corner.
“So I don’t know why he’s not looking at the car in front, unless his eyes are doing something funny. But it looked like he wasn’t looking at me and I think it shows [from] how hard he hit me, he was clearly focussed on something else.”
Stroll pitted for repairs after the collision. He returned to the pits again before the end of the race and served a 10-second penalty for the incident.
He now has a total of seven penalty points on his licence, having collected two at Silverstone and three in Las Vegas last year.
Both Aston Martin drivers collected penalty points on their licence this weekend. Fernando Alonso was given three for causing a collision with Carlos Sainz Jnr during the sprint race.
This article will be updated
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2024 Chinese Grand Prix
- Aston Martin petitions FIA to review Alonso’s penalty for Sainz collision
- “You need to be more on it”: 12 unheard radio exchanges from the Chinese GP
- Ricciardo needs to show “head-turning form” for 2025 chance – Horner
- With fourth format change in as many years, F1 relegated sprint races to a sideshow
- Williams accept ‘harsh but correct’ penalty for Sargeant
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
21st April 2024, 10:59
Daniel neither needed nor deserved this.
Thanks a lot Lance :/
MichaelN
21st April 2024, 11:29
Yeah, he looked better than Tsunoda this weekend and unlike in Japan, there really wasn’t anything HD could do about this incident.
These things sometimes happen in the back of the field in Indycar, but in what was effectively one string of cars Stroll really doesn’t have an excuse for this.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st April 2024, 14:46
Well, red bull is usually fair at evaluating drivers and they should take performance into consideration here instead of the end result, doubt it lowers ricciardo’s stocks (not familiar, might not be the right word, but basically I mean his percepted value).
MrBoerns (@mrboerns)
21st April 2024, 11:03
How is slight contact during a fight for position side by side three points and being completely incompetent, plowing into a car and ruining someones race is two?
Moi
21st April 2024, 11:36
This exactly. One of the dumbest things I’ve seen in F1.
Normally when someone pulls a dumb stunt, there is at least some intended gain behind it, a badly judged risk/reward. This was just plain incompetence.
Mr A
21st April 2024, 12:04
It’s ridiculous! MAG also had wheelspin which caused him to slide into Yuki, slippery track today and it’s as if the stewards have never raced in these conditions themselves.
We have to stop penalising slight contact in wheel-to-wheel racing, whatever the outcome.
Let them race.
Erkr
21st April 2024, 12:40
Magnussen destroyed Yuki’s race, with no consequence to his car. He was sliding and over corrected despite Yuki leaving more than ample space. He deserves punishment just like his Jeddah antics.
Jere (@jerejj)
21st April 2024, 11:05
Indeed & not the first time he hasn’t been wholly attentive to what’s ahead or around.
Simon
21st April 2024, 19:36
Pots & kettles…
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
21st April 2024, 11:42
After Vettel, Latifi, and now Ricciardo. How is that not a race ban? Ridiculously light penalty.
Riker (@corsair)
21st April 2024, 11:43
STR is just not F1 driver material. He repeatedly shows it. And his radio message after the contact just screams entitlement.
How he didn’t get the danger points penalty (or more actually) then MAG is unbelievable. Sigh.
Riker (@corsair)
21st April 2024, 11:45
Meant to say:
How he didn’t get a greater points penalty (or more actually) then MAG is unbelievable. Sigh.
Riccard
21st April 2024, 12:03
Magnussen doing an unintentional pit manoeuver on Tsunoda was also fairly awful.
It wasn’t a ‘racing’ incident, it was a ‘driving around a corner without running into the car in front’ incident.
I think Stroll’s is marginally worse because he literally had one job in that moment, which was to stay safely behind the cars in front as they all braked into the corner, and he didn’t pay attention – but he and Magunessen have both got away lightly for a lack of basic driving competenence.
Mog
21st April 2024, 11:47
stroll may just turn out to be the first driver to actually receive a race ban because of penalty points.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st April 2024, 14:49
I really doubt that, they will find a thousands excuses to not give points when a ban is coming, even discounting the matter of how powerful his father is.
Bleu (@bleu)
21st April 2024, 18:30
The big issue is if stewards fail to give penalty points while still giving an in-race penalty.
Probably the only case where that can be argued was with Grosjean who would have got a ban if stewards had awarded three penalty points in USA 2018. Eventually, he got one while I think two was a standard.
AZKev
21st April 2024, 12:21
The real story here is who are next season’s replacements for Magnuson and Stroll? Neither will be in Formula One next year.
Dale
21st April 2024, 19:35
LOL, do you think Papa Stroll spent a cool billion so the team could drop his blue eyed boy less than a year after all the investment eventually becomes operational?
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
21st April 2024, 12:27
So wooden hands Lance gets the same time penalty but one point less in his licence than Alonso who made teeny tiny contact while battling hard with Sainz?
Oh the logic!
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
22nd April 2024, 4:30
I agree with your point. Though the over emphasis (or should that be ‘de-emphasis’) is not especially necessary as I always think such things weaken an argument. And in this case there were other factors in the Alonso decision other than just the contact.
SteveP
21st April 2024, 16:31
Pot, kettle black, Daniel?
Who was it that ran into Albon while looking totally the other side of his car, rather recently?
True, Stroll was his usual (in)attentive self, but Dan should remember to check he isn’t sitting in a glass house.
Mog
21st April 2024, 21:32
Two very different incidents however.
Stroll had clear view at slow speed, and time to react. Also, he should have been expecting the concertina.
The other was in heat of battle and Albon was in Daniel’s blind spot.
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
22nd April 2024, 3:58
Umm… Daniel was ahead of Alex in Suzuka? How is that the same???
Dale
21st April 2024, 19:41
Aston really are suffering from being basically a single driver team.
When you combine the results from both drivers in qualifying and the races, Aston are closer to Haas than they are to Mercedes.
Can’t help wondering where they could be with a Vettel / Alonso combo … both in better results and improved development.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
22nd April 2024, 1:06
STR should have been given 4 points as he crunched the car ahead, called the driver ahead an idiot even though that driver managed to not hit the car in front of him, and then after it was all done, refused to take any responsibility for the crash. Apparently, he believes it’s a racing incident if everyone in front of you brakes to avoid contact and you just slam into them.