Four more drivers have received penalty points on their licences for incidents during the Qatar Grand Prix.
George Russell, Liam Lawson, Alexander Albon and Lance Stroll joined Lando Norris in collecting penalty points during Sunday’s race.
The Mercedes driver received a single penalty point for falling more than 10 car lengths behind the Safety Car when it was deployed during the race. “The evidence clearly showed that car 63 was more than 125 metres, which is more than 20 car lengths, behind the car in front during the Safety Car period,” noted the stewards.
The other three drivers were all penalised for collisions with rivals. Stroll ran into Albon at turn four on the first lap, while the Williams driver later collided with Kevin Magnussen at turn one. Liam Lawson also clashed with Valtteri Bottas in a similar fashion at the first corner.
Regarding Stroll, the stewards noted that “he entered turn four, rode the kerb which created understeer, taking his car into the side of [Albon]” and “despite this being a lap one incident, the collision was not the result of normal lap one crowding, so the usual tolerance for lap one instances is not applicable.”
Stroll moves on to a total of four penalty points, while the other drivers all collected their first points of the current 12-month period.
Oscar Piastri was given a formal warning, but no points on his licence, for a pre-race incident when he swerved past two drivers on his way into the pits. “The driver explained the two cars in front of him were travelling very slowly and he wished to overtake them,” noted the stewards.
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“The team provided telemetry evidence that [Piastri] was not travelling at excessive speed and that the driver was in control at all times. Although the manoeuvre appeared erratic on the video, we did not determine that it was dangerous. However such erratic manoeuvres should be avoided, hence the penalty of a formal warning is applied.”
Sergio Perez was cleared of driving dangerously when he spun out of the race. The stewards looked into the incident as it appeared he drove towards the oncoming traffic, but learned he had been trying to spin his car around when this happened and suffered a technical problem.
“Car 11 spun and stopped sideways on the right hand side of the track,” the stewards noted. “The driver then appeared to drive directly across the track at right angles to the oncoming…
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