Lance Stroll has been given two penalty points on his licence for crashing into Daniel Ricciardo during the Chinese Grand Prix.
The Aston Martin driver was also given a 10-second penalty for running into the back of the RB driver as they approached the turn 14 hairpin during the first Safety Car period.
The queue of cars ahead of the drivers slowed as they approached the corner. Stroll hit the back of the RB squarely, sending it into Oscar Piastri’s McLaren ahead of them.
The stewards ruled Stroll should have realised the cars ahead were about to slow.
“The cars were all travelling slowly to set up for the restart of the race towards the end of a Safety Car period,” they noted. “The car in front of car 18 [Stroll] slowed down to take the corner and also to try to match the pace of the group of cars in front of it. Car 18 then collided with car three [Ricciardo].
“We determined that car 18 ought to have anticipated the pace of the cars in front, particularly car 3 and should have prepared to brake accordingly. Had it done that, it would have avoided the collision. Hence car 18 was predominantly to blame for the collision that ultimately led to car three having to retire from the race.”
Ricciardo suffered significant damage to his diffuser and floor but remained on-track for the restart. However the loss of downforce cost him a significant amount of rear-end grip, and he was quickly passed by a string of rivals, then pulled into the pits to retire.
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The RB driver believes his rival wasn’t paying attention in the seconds before they collided. “It’s a restart so we don’t know what the leader’s going to do,” Ricciardo told Sky. “So you have to be as vigilant as ever and be prepared for any situation. I could see it was obviously bunching up into the hairpin so everyone’s backing up.
“But then obviously how hard he’s hit me and pretty much put half his car under mine, it wasn’t a judgement, he was miles off. That for me, there’s honestly no excuse. What’s frustrating is I watched his onboard and he’s not even looking at me. You can see his helmet, he’s looking at the apex of the corner.
“So I don’t know why he’s not looking at the car in front, unless his eyes are doing something funny. But it looked like he wasn’t looking at me and I think it shows [from] how hard he hit me, he was clearly focussed on something else.”
Stroll pitted for repairs after the collision. He…
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