Hungary: Penalty for Giovinazzi for impeding Stroll in Q1
Judged responsible for hindering Lance Stroll during the Q1 session, the Alfa Romeo driver receives a penalty that will drop him three places on the starting grid.
The facts are as follows: in the middle of a fast lap, Lance Stroll discovered Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo right in the racing line, with the Italian being on a slow lap.
The incident occurred at turn 4 and directly forced the Canadian to halt his effort to avoid the crash.
Reported to the authorities by the Racing Point team as soon as the event was observed, the sanction, logical, seemed inevitable.
Number 99 is penalized by 3 grid positions and will therefore start 17th.
Kevin Magnussen, George Russell, and Sergio Perez each move up one rank.
The commissioners stated following their decision that although Antonio Giovinazzi’s team did not inform him of Stroll’s arrival, the driver should have taken the necessary precautions to avoid this kind of situation: « Notwithstanding the fact that the team incorrectly informed the driver of car 99 that he was in sync with car 18, when in fact car 18 was on a hot lap, it is the driver’s responsibility to ensure that, during an in-lap, he makes all reasonable efforts to monitor the arrival of cars on a hot lap and to ensure they are not impeded. »
Beyond that aspect, the neglect of considering the blue flag is clearly implicated in the penalty handed to Antonio Giovinazzi: It was noted that a blue light panel was shown to car 99 halfway between turns 3 and 4. Telemetry and GPS data confirmed that car 18 lost considerable time in the relevant section of the track. The stewards believe that the driver of car 99 could, and should, have moved off the racing line before turn 4. As a result, the driver unnecessarily impeded car 18.
From our special correspondent in Hungary
