Blaž Štremfelj
After the race in Sahir, the commissioners finished their work and awarded penalties for the two most high-profile offenses in the race. He cooked the first one Charles Leclerc, which is in the fourth turn of the first round, according to the commissioners in the fight with Max Verstappn, Valtteri Bottas in Sergio Perez bore a greater share of the blame for colliding with the latter. Racer Ferrari he misjudged the situation and braked too late in doing so blocked the circuit, so he slipped into the team racer Racing Point.
Leclerc had to because of damaged car resign, and Perez had to go to the pits for new tires, and at the end of the race he even won.
Verstappen was fully involved in the incident Indirectly, as he did not collide with any car. The Dutchman cleverly avoided the two racing cars, which got complicated, but in doing so he drove into a sandy excursion zone and slipped into a protective fence. Racer Red Bull Racing therefore was not dealt with, but Leclerc was given the penalty of losing three starting places in the next race, which will be Abu Dhabi this weekend.
"I expected Perez to overtake Bottas on the outside and stay on the other side of the track, but he decided to close the inside, ” explained the event Monachan, who added that it was after too lateto make enough slowed down, and he blamed himself.
Leclerc's ride is angry Verstappen: “I don’t know why they were so aggressive and reckless. We were all in the front and three cars were involved because of that kind of driving. ”
The second high-profile offense, however, occurred 20 laps before the end of the race, when due to a close encounter Nicholas Latifi and protective tires, brought a safety car to the track. Leading George Russell in Valtteri Bottas they drove one after the other into the pits of the Mercedes to protect themselves from rivals with newer tires as the race continued.
The first to stop was the leading Russell, to whom the mechanics by mistake put on the car front tires intended for Bottas, which is prohibited and is punishable under normal circumstances by disqualification racer. But at Mercedes, they wanted to fix the mistake, so it is Russell drove into the pits again in the next round, and the commissioners took into account the fact that a mistake had been made due to problems with radio communication, which made the mechanics not know that Russell would also drive into the pits.
Due to mitigating circumstances, such as that the team rectified the error in the next round and that Russell lost additional seats, affected the milder sentence, as well as the fact that Bottas lost a lot of time at the first stop when Russell drove away with his tires and the mechanics put a set of wheels back on his race car to bring him to the pits.
Mercedes received this award globe in the amount of EUR 20.000, as, according to the Commissioners, there had been a violation of Article 24.4b, which, while prohibiting the use of different mixtures of tires, was a similar offense. The FIA will otherwise consider the possibility changes to the rule in questionthat in future such cases, when the team itself corrects the error, no penalty will be required.
