The stewards’ decision is in regarding Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz who were summoned for yellow flag infringement during Saturday’s qualifying.
During qualifying yesterday, Pierre Gasly suffered a puncture and had to stop his car down the long straight over on the right-hand side. Yellow flags were waved because of the danger this posed and three drivers were summoned to the stewards for not slowing down.
Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz were summoned for not respecting single-waved yellow flags whilst Max Verstappen allegedly did not respect double yellow flags.
All three drivers went to the stewards this morning and the news has just broken about their punishment.
Initially, the three qualified in P2 (Verstappen), P3 (Bottas), and P7 (Sainz). However, the starting grid has now changed as Bottas and Verstappen have received grid-place penalties.
For Carlos Sainz, the stewards have decided that no further action is needed. According to the FIA document, Sainz said that he did see car 10, Pierre Gasly’s car, and made a significant reduction in speed because of the probability that he was in a yellow flag area.
Max Verstappen, car 33, has received a drop of five grid positions as well as 2 penalty points. His lap time of 1:21.282 has been deleted. Red Bull told the stewards that there was a “lack of display of the yellow light panels, no dash warning lights and no audio signal to the driver”. The stewards took that into account but still gave Verstappen the grid-place penalty.
Valtteri Bottas, car 77, has received a drop of three grid positions and one penalty point. Bottas admitted that he did not notice the yellow flag displayed at Flag Point 16.6 and conceded that he did not reduce speed, according to the FIA document.
The new starting grid for the top 10 is as follows:
Feature Image Credit: formula1.com