Lance Stroll, Racing Point, Bahrain International Circuit, 2020

Kvyat “upset” with penalty for Stroll crash

2020 Bahrain Grand Prix

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Daniil Kvyat has been given two penalty points on his licence for the crash which flipped Lance Stroll upside-down during the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The pair made contact at turn eight at the restart of the race. Kvyat tried to overtake Stroll on the inside of the corner but hit the Racing Point’s right-rear wheel, flipping his car onto its roll hoop.

The stewards held Kvyat responsible for the collision and gave him a 10-second time penalty as well as two penalty points on his licence, which take him to a total of four.

“Car 18 [Stroll] was on the racing line, car 26 [Kvyat] tried to complete an overtaking manoeuvre but failed to execute it,” the stewards noted. “The stewards concluded that the driver of car 26 was wholly to blame for the incident.”

The AlphaTauri rejected the stewards’ assessment, insisting Stroll knew where his car was but did not leave him space.

“I don’t share the stewards’ view on that,” said Kvyat. “I think I had nowhere to go. I already put my whole car on the inside kerb.

“He, on the other hand, he knew I was in there, but he turned in as if I wasn’t there. So I’m a bit upset at this decision, it’s kind of ruined my race because I had a great second start, I was again back in the game, but this penalty just ruined everything.”

Stroll insisted he “didn’t see anything” before the impact. “I couldn’t see him at all. I was halfway through the corner when I got hit.”

Following his retirement, Stroll has now failed to score in five of the last six races, one of which he withdrew from after contracting Covid-19.

“It’s just a shame,” he said. “We’ve scored two points since Monza and there was a time where we were fourth in the world championship and things are looking really good. Since then it’s just been a disaster.

“So I don’t know what else to add, we just have to focus on the next one and try to put an end to this run of bad luck and move forward.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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39 comments on “Kvyat “upset” with penalty for Stroll crash”

  1. He should’ve backed off as he had zero chance of succeeding in getting past Stroll. He inadvertently helped Mclaren to a little extent.

    1. I disagree, had Kvyat been more forceful he would have taken the place. Shambolic penalty.

      1. @peartree Did you feel the same about Hamilton getting a penalty in Brazil when he tried to overtake Albon (who similarly left the door wide open)?

        1. @f1osaurus yes. Too many penalties given for racing incidents.

    2. A stupid penalty, the accident occured with Kvyat being completely off track.
      It seems the stewards will penalise a driver who makes any attempt to prevent an accident.

  2. Stroll cutting across the track to take the apex on the first lap of the race as if other drivers wouldn’t be around seems like an error on his end and not on Kvyat’s end. Giving a 10s penatly and penalty points makes no sense for something that was so obviously a racing incident.

    I guess this is one of those cases where penalties are awarded because of the result of a crash rather than looking at the incident itself. Tons of these kind of crashes happen on first laps all the time where they don’t even bother looking at them.

    1. Not a Stroll fan, but that was a poorly executed dive bomb and Kvyat knew it as soon as he started it, then tried to get out of it unsuccessfully. Was too late by then.

      Having said that, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt today – he was probably thinking he’d nearly killed Grosjean, even though that wasn’t Kvyat’s fault.

    2. Stroll keeps doing this and always with the same result, maybe he is not bright enough? The poor Russian gets the blame, money talks.

      1. IMO Stroll is doing this as investment for the future, teaching everybody he will not back out and give in to people sticking their nose in, and it’s probably a right strategy but not now at the end of the season when the team is in a close fight for 3rd and every point counts. Kvyat has form and is frustrated. Even I would know to be extra careful around him.

        1. That’s what Senna did too, and I guess it worked for him back then…

    3. “I guess this is one of those cases where penalties are awarded because of the result of a crash rather than looking at the incident itself.”

      This is one of the parts of the sport that must change in the future. We have the technology to keep the stewards isolated from the race and to almost instantly apply a filter to the footage that they view that can recolour the cars and block out distinctive features so they can be referred to a clip to choose if a transgression of the rules has occurred without knowing the effect it has had on the race, the wider context or without knowing the drivers involved.

    4. @aiii I agree. Even if Kvyat is not entirely blameless I think most drivers would have given racing room on the apex rather than cutting sharply across it. It’s not the first time Stroll has cut across like that either and I don’t think it’s doing him any favours to apportion all the blame on Kvyat, since that will reaffirm his belief that he did nothing wrong and maybe lead to more similar incidents in the future.

  3. That was a racing incident

  4. Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
    29th November 2020, 19:52

    I felt for Kvyat, as once again he gets blamed for something he didn’t do but only because ‘oh dear, there’s the torpedo again’-image. Just as when Vettel crashes it’s the whole ‘Crashkid’ and when Verstappen does it its ‘crashtappen’. They always get the blame even though it’s somebody elses fault.

    It was Stroll who, once again, drove like he was the only one on track. He either doesn’t look around him or he can’t because he’s only able to do 1 thing at a time. The only times he does alright is if there’s nobody around him for a 4-second gap.

    That’s the reason he’ll never get rid off of the paydriver-image: he just is and a poor one at that.

    1. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who seen how unfair those stupid Stewards remarks and decisions were. Something should be done about this radical unfair bias is. How can one compete when you have to drive so defensively against certain drivers or else the Stewards will penalize you?

    2. Stroll is not poor in general any more. He was great last weekend and damage in the race didn’t help. He also was at least as good, possibly even better than Perez in the first half of the season. Many places that did mid season driver ratings rated Stroll higher than Perez. Things have turned for the worse for him now, but he’s also been very unlucky in recent races, only being to blame for one or two of them. He missed a podium in Tuscany. as well as possibly a 4th place in Russia.He had the best start of anyone on the grid.

      Stroll has had a mixed season, but would not conclude he is a poor driver on the whole. Compared to pay drivers like Maldonado and Ericsson, I think he is far better. And I still think he will keep improving little by little. He’s still young.

      1. Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
        30th November 2020, 8:39

        Grasping at straws there. If you have to go back to using good ‘ol Pastor as a comparison, you know somebody is terrible at their job. Not to mention ‘but he is still young’ is the most pointless excuse ever. There’s plenty of younger/equally young drivers on the grid with worse cars than his, but outperform him every single race weekend.

        The fact he gets a good start when others have a worse one but him then driving like he’s alone on the track (and make the biggest of rookie mistakes) time and time again, really show that he just doesn’t learn. Yeah, he might have been alright in the first half of the season when the 1-on-1 copy of the Mercedes could tag along just fine, but when he had to help develop the thing, he dropped the ball.

        Anyone with some sense would pick Perez over Stroll in a heartbeat

      2. @thegianthogweed the idea that he is young and can keep getting better just doesn’t make sense. Drivers are supposed to be the best by the time they get to F1, it’s not a driving school, and even after 76 races he’s still not showing any signs of being anything other than fairly average. Yes, he’s shown a few moments of decent speed but that should be expected of anyone who makes it to F1. I must admit I felt a bit sorry for him in Turkey but even then it became quite clear afterwards that he really doesn’t have any understanding or mechanical sympathy to help him – sure he can put it on Pole and probably win a race when it’s handed to him on a platter but if he has to actually do it for himself he just isn’t capable.

        Any suggestion that he is much better than Maldonado is rubbish – Maldonado had his one day where he had the package to get the job done and at the end of the day he managed it, Stroll was given a similar opportunity in Turkey and finished in 9th place.

        He has already started more F1 races than Jimmy Clark, Stirling Moss or Gilles Villeneuve and if he still lacks the basic range of skills needed for F1 by now then it’s clear that nothing other than money is keeping him in F1 and it’s not about getting better. There’s a reason why few drivers of his ability ever get the opportunity to race for four seasons and there are literally hundereds of drivers who’ve competed a season or less and didn’t get the opportunity to spend years taking up a seat just in case they might one day suddenly be good and I suspect the number of them who were as good as or better than Lance is probably also a three digit number.

  5. 10s + 2 penalty points is a bit much. Stroll’s lack of awareness played a role as well.

  6. Look at the case whenever someone had a terrible accident this race, kvyat was involved!

    1. Kvyat was minding his own business when Grosjean’s car came and hit his. Same thing with Stroll’s, he even went outside the white line and Stroll still hit him.

    2. In both Grosjean and Strolls cases there seemed to be a lack of spacial awareness.

      1. Agreed. Both drive as if no one else is on the track. 🤦

  7. Stoll is the one upside down in the end not Kvyat. Lets hope Stoll can only learn to be a better driver, even if you feel he got there by is Dad’s money.

  8. Kvyat was on a line to torpedo the bollard at the corner before the two made contact.

    He did, in fact, hit the bollard and send it bouncing across the track. It’s very difficult to wrap my brain around what Kvyat’s intentions were– it felt like another one of those “I didn’t want to be pushed around, so I didn’t avoid the crash” incidents.

    At the same time, I feel that the stewards might have had Grosjean’s accident in mind– and Kvyat, as far as I can tell, was blameless on that one.

  9. Kyvat absolutely deserved something there, but he probably thinks that if Leclerc got nothing for his move on Stroll in Russia, then no penalty was warranted in his situation.

  10. Apart from being a penalty Yes or no, am I the only one that thinks that the cut across from Stroll was entirely pointless? Hé could have given spare and still come out of that corner easily ahead of Kvyat.

    1. You’re not the only one. Stroll needs to recognise that while Kvyat probably shouldn’t have stuck his nose in, Stroll also could have avoided the incident by being aware of the car on his inside and giving him room at the apex. It wouldn’t have cost Stroll much at all to go a couple of metres wider rather than cutting straight across the inside kerb.

  11. Racing incident. I thought everything on 1st lap after start/restart is a racing incident. Stroll dove across track. If you watch the McLaren that is ahead of Stroll, it stays outside of the turn because they know that on the first lap there is going to be someone there. I won’t argue that it was the racing line and Stroll was ahead so he has a right to that space but the result for Stroll was DNF with a superior car which is unacceptable.

  12. Both drivers were to blame in my view. Maybe Lance didn’t see Daniil; Kvyat was quite far to the right and possibly in the blind spot, but Daniil did kind of just saunter into turn 8 and it ended up as a half-hearted and clumsy attempt at an overtake. Once again however, Stroll showed a lack of spatial awareness by turning in and assuming that nobody was there.

  13. Lance used the whole corner just like no one else was racing him. Daniil Kvyat was making the corner at the same speed but he was nearly off the track while doing it. He stayed in his line but Lance came from the left to the right in the corner running into Daniil Kvyat car 26. The stupid stewards said car 26 was in Lance ‘s way. It was a unfair decision based on bias or else there stupidity. I’m only guessing what they were thinking with that ridiculous ruling, something unfair must be motivating them.It looks like if you get anywhere in Lance’s way they will blame you. He didn’t need the entire corner. Daniil Kvyat proved that by making the same corner at the same speed and doing it almost off the track. A car before Lance Stroll made that same corner staying on the outside of the corner. The ruling should have consequences towards the stupid Stewards. I wonder if they even analyzed it in replays? If so it really shows how inept they are or unscrupulous.

  14. Racing incident in my opinion. Kvyat had nowhere to go after committing to the corner (the left side of his car was already on the inside kerb) while Stroll looked for a better exit out of the turn, thus taking a late apex. Both should have left just slightly more space.

    1. @kaiie So what did you think of Hamilton’s attempt on Albon in Brazil?

  15. So now Stroll has done the same thing to Max, Lando and Daniil … left a gaping wide corner and then turned right into the apex when there was another car there.

    At which point are the FIA going to penalize him for hitting other cars?

    1. Agree. Stroll has lots of history when it comes to this manoeuvre. He seems not to look in his mirrors on the inside. If you watch the video for each instance he has been involved in, the inside driver is approaching or already on apex, and he simply turns in and hits them. Daniil didn’t hit Stroll, it was the other way round. Daniil was at the apex already when Stroll simply cut across. Disagree with penalty; should have been a racing incident and that was the view of most commentators seeing it ‘live’.

    2. @paulsteward40 At what point do the other drivers learn that this is not a legal overtake attempt? Kvyat has done the same to many drivers already, with always the same result.

      Hamilton at least tried to back out of it in Brazil when he tried to overtake Albon (also leaving the door gaping wide).

      Drivers need to learn that they need to either ram it through, Verstappen/Magnusen style or yield when it’s clear they will not be ahead before the breaking point. After the braking point, the racing line is for whoever was ahead at that point.

  16. It’s interesting if you watch the view from the camera before the corner – behind them both Magnussen and Vettel manage to avoid the Alfa Romeo which is on the inside of the corner without any problem, clearly two drivers who are much more aware of what is going on around them on a busy first lap. Indeed the Alfa itself despite being the car on the inside still took less kerb than Stroll tried to do and might still have managed to avoid Kvyat despite taking a fairly tight line. Stroll just seemed to completely lack any awareness that anyone else was on the track. Likewise Kvyat perhaps should have held back (Stroll is, after all, known for being unaware of his surroundings) so to me it’s a racing incident.

  17. 2 drivers in that race had serious crashes due to the positioning of kvyats car, he does need to reflect on his role in those accidents .

  18. The one which flipped Stroll over was fair to me.

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