The danger seemed low. The investigation was nevertheless wide open during the qualifying session. At the very beginning of the first part of the qualifications, the Mercedes box released Lewis Hamilton and George Russell into the midst of the other cars. Oscar Piastri had to make a move to avoid George Russell’s wing and the FIA judged that the Mercedes team should be penalized.
The FIA opened an investigation immediately and asked the two drivers involved, George Russell and Oscar Piastri, to come to the FIA offices for debriefing. The FIA believes that the unsafe exit of car 63 is a violation of article 34.14 a) of the FIA Formula 1 sporting regulations.
The Mercedes-AMG team is fined 5,000 euros, confirms the statement.
« The stewards heard from the driver of car 63 (George Russell), the driver of car 81 (Oscar Piastri), team representatives, and reviewed external and onboard videos. The driver of car 63 stated that upon receiving the release signal from his mechanic, he intended to head towards the pit lane, but he saw out of the corner of his eye the mechanic of car 44, and in order to avoid him, he claimed to have had to move towards the fast lane. » detailed the statement.
« He could not see the car of driver 81 approaching. The driver of car 81 declared that he had to maneuver to avoid car 63 which was approaching. The examination of the video from the pit lane shows that the mechanic of car 63 who released the car did not look into the pit lane to check if it was clear. Even if the team’s stated intention was for car 63 to head to the pit lane and then merge with the other cars waiting before the red light, it is still the team’s responsibility to release the car safely and best practice would dictate that before releasing the car, the pit lane should be checked for approaching vehicles. »
This reminder of the rules is important from a safety point of view for the personnel working in the pitlane as well as for the drivers. In Japan, the speed is limited to 80 km/h in the pitlane, the same as on our national roads. The approach speeds are high.
In the case of the start of qualifying sessions, it is not uncommon to see drivers waiting at the red light to create a gap between each car during their warm-up lap. The disadvantage for Mercedes is that the garage is located near the red light where the circuit opening queue forms. The garages are therefore regularly blocked by traffic.
