Tag: Monaco GP

Frustrated Steiner calls for professional F1 stewards

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner says it is time for Formula 1 to employ permanent stewards after being frustrated by a penalty for Nico Hulkenberg in Monaco. Hulkenberg (pictured at right, above, with Steiner) was penalized for causing a …

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner says it is time for Formula 1 to employ permanent stewards after being frustrated by a penalty for Nico Hulkenberg in Monaco.

Hulkenberg (pictured at right, above, with Steiner) was penalized for causing a collision when overtaking Logan Sargeant on the opening lap, potentially making contact with Lance Stroll ahead of him. However, Steiner says there is no definitive footage that shows any contact was made, and pointed to numerous other collisions that went unpunished as a sign of the inconsistency in decision-making from volunteer stewards that necessitates the need for full-time professionals.

“Do we need a different system for the stewards?” Steiner asked. “Because every professional sport has got professionals being referees and stuff like this. F1 is one of the biggest sports in the world and we still have laymen deciding on the fate of people that invest millions in their careers. It’s always a discussion because there’s no consistency.

“I don’t want to blame any particular person on this, but if they’re not all there all the time then this is just like a job every…. It’s not even a job, because in a job you can get sacked because you get paid, and if you do a bad job you get sacked. You cannot get sacked because you do not get paid. I think we need to step it up.

“I think it’s now time. We’ve been discussing this for years and years and we always go back to this. Every other sport has professional referees, American racing — NASCAR, IndyCar, how many times do you hear problems with the stewards or with the race director’s decisions? Very rarely. But they are doing it completely differently, there are full-time people working there.

“I’m always saying ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ not that I have to prove that I was innocent, because that doesn’t work for me — that’s not how I look at life.”

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Confirming he had asked the FIA for an explanation and proof of the collision, he says there was no clear reasoning for why it wasn’t treated as a lap 1 incident that shows a further gap in the policing.

“Yes, we asked that and we got a very broad… It was never really decided and nobody really knows what was decided, so now they try to make a definition of what is a lap 1 incident. We had it last year with the black and orange flag, which we got three times and in the middle of season they changed the rules.

“For every team, especially for the teams from P5 to P10 this year, every point counts. Obviously we weren’t in the points and I wouldn’t say that we would have been in the points, but to prevent it in the future can you imagine if you were in the points and you got a penalty for this? This could change your end-of-year result, and by not having done anything wrong. So it’s pretty disappointing.”

Alonso calls out F1’s excessive negativity amid Aston Martin criticism

Fernando Alonso says Formula 1 doesn’t focus on positives enough as he defended Aston Martin’s tire call in the Monaco Grand Prix. Meeting F1 media ahead of his home race at the Spanish Grand Prix, Alonso found the main topic remained whether his …

Fernando Alonso says Formula 1 doesn’t focus on positives enough as he defended Aston Martin’s tire call in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Meeting F1 media ahead of his home race at the Spanish Grand Prix, Alonso found the main topic remained whether his Aston Martin team missed the chance to win in Monaco by fitting slick tires to Alonso’s car on a wet track, resulting in him needing to pit again one lap later. Alonso admits with hindsight it would have been better to switch to intermediates initially but that there’s not enough credit being given to the way the call was made at the time.

“Maybe if you have the crystal ball and you know the conditions, you know who stops and who doesn’t stop, and then finally it rains and you need the inters, then 100 percent you stop for inters,” Alonso said. “What I don’t like in Formula 1 is that we see always the negatives and we always see everything very easy from the sofa.

“I tell you an example: If we stopped for inters, this week we would only talk about the wrong decision of Red Bull stopping one lap too late. We would never have thought that Aston Martin was very brave and chose the right tire, we would only talk that Red Bull chose the wrong tire and stopped Max (Verstappen) one lap too late. This is just the mentality of the unlimited search for perfection, which is not possible to reach sometimes.

“So if you (are) put in our shoes and there was half of the track dry and half starting to get wet and we had a free stop and everyone behind was on dry tires, if we stop for dry tires and eventually we have to stop for wet tires, everyone stops for wet tires and we keep just the position. If we stop for inters and it doesn’t rain and everyone behind us is with drys and we need to stop for drys, then we fall to seventh. So if we take the wrong decision and finish P2 in Monaco, we took that.

“Now if we look at the race on TV again we will stop for inters, 100 percent yes, that was better. But in that moment, why didn’t Max stop for inters as well? He went one lap longer than me but with a different tire. Difficult to know, but as I said, the biggest thing is that at every race we never put enough prize to the right things that the teams, in very stressful moments, do. We always spot the one thing that they do wrong and then we go hard on them.”

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Ahead of this weekend’s grand prix in Barcelona, Alonso says he feels no closer to winning a race this season and that Aston Martin will need to improve the rate at which it brings upgrades to its car as it grows.

“We have some new parts. I’m not sure exactly what — you will see it on the documents that the FIA is releasing. I think front wing, there is some modification there and we are always bringing new parts to the car — some of them are circuit-specific and sometimes they are just an improvement in lap time.

“I am happy with how we are approaching every race. There is always something new on our car and we have to keep up the pace with the top teams. We are still growing in that area of the team, and we found ourselves in a competitive place this year that we didn’t expect.

“I think we still need to speed up things, because I still think Ferrari or Mercedes are already two floors into this season, and I think Mercedes had a completely new car in Monaco and more upgrades here. Red Bull had the Baku package and another one here. So we understand that we are not in that position yet, but we stay humble, delivering the job on Sundays and try to score more points than them.”

TV ratings: Indy 500, Monaco

With rain diluting the competition from NASCAR last Sunday, the Indianapolis 500 easily topped the motorsports TV world on Memorial Day weekend. The signature race of the NTT IndyCar Series averaged a 2.65 Nielsen rating and 4.716 million viewers on …

With rain diluting the competition from NASCAR last Sunday, the Indianapolis 500 easily topped the motorsports TV world on Memorial Day weekend. The signature race of the NTT IndyCar Series averaged a 2.65 Nielsen rating and 4.716 million viewers on NBC per numbers from ShowBuzzDaily.com, following on yesterday’s news of a Total Audience Delivery (counting streaming on Peacock and NBC Sports’ digital platforms) of 4.92m. Last year’s race had a 2.69 rating and 4.618m, with a TAD of 4.84m.

The Indy 500 pre-race show on NBC averaged 1.28/2.144, up from 1.22/1.882m last year.

Formula 1 returned to ABC for the Monaco Grand Prix and averaged an 0.89 rating and 1.518m viewers for the live telecast, including the pre-race show. An average of 1.79m watched the race itself, making it the most-viewed live Monaco GP telecast on-record and third-largest F1 live audience ever in the U.S. ABC also aired a replay later in the delay that averaged 0.30/564,000. Last year Monaco aired live on ESPN and subsequently replayed on ABC, with the live telecast averaging 0.76/1.396m.

F1 qualifying from Monaco on ESPN Saturday morning averaged 0.46/818K.

Coverage of the rain delay of the NASCAR Cup Series race from Charlotte before the race was postponed averaged 0.70/1.178m on FOX. Numbers for Monday’s delayed Cup and Xfinity Series races will be available next week. Last year, the Coca-Cola 600 averaged 2.20/3.869m on FOX.

The Craftsman Truck Series race from Charlotte ran as scheduled on Friday night and averaged 0.33/548,000 on FS1. That was down from 0.35/590K last year. ACRA Menards Racing Series faction from Charlotte preceding the Trucks on FS1 averaged 0.18/288,000, compared to last year’s 0.16/263K.

In the 18-49 age demo (network only, no streaming), the Indy 500 led with an average of 734,000, followed by Monaco (435K live, plus 134K for the replay) and 293K for the Charlotte rainout coverage.

Updated to correct Indy 500 pre-race numbers

Russell ruing mistake that cost him ‘a comfortable P3’

George Russell was left kicking himself after his mistake in the Monaco Grand Prix cost him a podium he felt was all but certain after his pit stop. Mercedes opted to start with Russell on the hard compound tire in Sunday’s race and ran long in case …

George Russell was left kicking himself after his mistake in the Monaco Grand Prix cost him a podium he felt was all but certain after his pit stop.

Mercedes opted to start with Russell on the hard compound tire in Sunday’s race and ran long in case rain fell or there was an interruption that would allow a quick pit stop. It was the weather that intervened and Russell was running third when it was time to fit intermediate tires, doing so at the same time as Esteban Ocon and Lewis Hamilton and emerging still ahead of both. However, Russell instantly lost both positions after going straight on at Mirabeau and came home fifth.

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“Exceptionally boring race until the rain came down,” Russell said. “Kinda came outta nowhere as it wasn’t on the forecast. Really kicking myself because P3 was almost guaranteed after not pitting. I came out, there was a yellow flag, I backed off and as soon as I touched the brakes I locked up and followed Stroll up the escape road.

“That’s probably a lesson when you’re not on it and you’re not focused you make those mistakes. If there wasn’t a yellow flag there I would have been focusing more and wouldn’t have gone off. Cost the team a comfortable P3.”

Team principal Toto Wolff took to the radio to try and calm Russell down later in the race, but the driver says he was still in control of his emotions just trying to find a release behind the wheel at the time.

“Probably I was venting my frustration at myself. Nothing more than that. As a driver you sometimes want to get the frustration out of your body.

“Not necessarily easy for everybody to understand why and I actually learned my mistake wasn’t actually shown on television until a replay after the race. I don’t think it was actually clear to people that we were effectively P3 on track and lost it. A lot of people text me saying ‘well done on P5’, not realizing I made a big mistake and cost us P3.”

Recovering from his error, Russell reversed out of the escape road but into the path of Sergio Perez who ran into the Mercedes, earning Russell a five-second time penalty that he took full responsibility for and says could have been a race-ending incident.

“Definitely damaged the car a bit. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to continue but it sorted itself out as the lap progressed. I think the toes got bent at the rear end. I felt really uncomfortable in the car but we were the quickest on track during that period so I don’t really know what was going on.

“As soon as I knew we were safe to Charles (Leclerc) I brought it home. But it’s very disappointing when you do everything right for 98 percent of it but that one tiny mistake costs everything.”

Ocon would have been happy with a top 10 in Monaco

Esteban Ocon would have settled for a top 10 result in the Monaco Grand Prix ahead of the race weekend, leaving him overjoyed with his first podium since his victory in Hungary two years ago. A stunning qualifying lap had Ocon sitting on provisional …

Esteban Ocon would have settled for a top 10 result in the Monaco Grand Prix ahead of the race weekend, leaving him overjoyed with his first podium since his victory in Hungary two years ago.

A stunning qualifying lap had Ocon sitting on provisional pole position at one stage before lining up third after Charles Leclerc’s penalty on Saturday. Ocon held onto that position throughout the first part of the race before negotiating wet weather – benefiting from George Russell’s mistake immediately after making a pit stop – to finish third on the iconic street circuit.

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“I’m a little bit on my cloud still,” Ocon said. “You know, before the weekend, if you told us that we are going to be in the top 10, we would have been happy. It would have been a strong weekend. But we are not in the top 10, we are not in the top five, we are on the podium this weekend here in Monaco.

“That shows really that we never stopped believing. We had a difficult start to the season but from the first session, I felt strong in the car, felt confident at the wheel. I was able to push, session after sessions, closer to the limit than I’m usually doing in Monaco. That allowed me to do the lap I did (in qualifying), which is obviously 90 per cent of the job – normally – in Monaco. But it was not really the case (in the race)!

“It has been a little bit of a harder race. We held that podium for a while, we had it secure, but I got a touch from Carlos (Sainz) at one stage, got damage on the on the back of the car. And then the rain shuffled everything again, and we had to choose to take the inters at the right time. And we did so.

“And from there on I was under a huge amount of pressure from Lewis. We seem to always be the two fighting together when the conditions are like that! So we know each other well in those conditions. And until the last lap, he was pushing flat-out.

“He was quicker in the wet section from Turn 5 to Turn 8, and I was quicker on the dry sections. It’s been an incredibly tough race to get under control but the reward is immense. So, I’m extremely pleased.”

And Ocon admits he was surprised by the pace of the Alpine in Monaco, so is even more keen to see what the team can produce at a very different circuit in Barcelona this weekend coming.

“I think, as soon as we put it down from the simulator days, really to all the practice sessions, we’ve been improving step-by-step and never stopping doing it. And it’s been a very different weekend compared to my usual Monaco weekends, where I was not afraid to go close to the walls very early.

“Yeah, it extremely surprised us for sure. I think we should keep our feet on the ground at the moment. Obviously, we’re on the podium here, we will enjoy all together. And I want to thank all the team, obviously Enstone, Viry, the team on-site here.

“That podium – not win, not yet – is all for them. But Barcelona is going to be a very different characteristic. A track that everyone knows and a good test for us to see where we are exactly.”

Verstappen admits fighting Monaco conditions was uncomfortable

Max Verstappen says he hit the wall multiple times and was struggling to judge how much risk to take as rain threatened his lead in the Monaco Grand Prix. Fernando Alonso starting on the hard tire forced Red Bull to keep Verstappen out on medium …

Max Verstappen says he hit the wall multiple times and was struggling to judge how much risk to take as rain threatened his lead in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Fernando Alonso starting on the hard tire forced Red Bull to keep Verstappen out on medium tires until lap 55, reacting to the Spaniard finally pitting as rain started to fall. Verstappen saw his lead cut from over 13s to around 8s at that point, and says he was trying to balance how hard he pushed with the chance of making a mistake in wet conditions.

“It was quite hectic towards the end,” Verstappen said. “But also I think the whole race was all about management, because Fernando starting on the hard made me do a very long stint, probably almost double to what we would have liked. But because of the rain in the area, we couldn’t really stop.

“I mean, if it would have been nice and sunny, I would have stopped, put the hard tire on, then you catch up and wait until Fernando does his pit stop. But we couldn’t do that because the risk of rain was around so I had to stay out. The tires were graining… I had to go through that graining phase that wasn’t that easy, then luckily it picked up a little bit.

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“But then of course it started to rain, and we had really worn tires to go through there. (It) was not really enjoyable; clipped a few barriers, especially on my in-lap I think. It was very, very difficult. But even on the intermediates after that, it was still very slippery through the second sector. It was quite wet there.

“The hard bit is that you have a good lead, but of course you don’t want to risk too much, but you don’t want to drive too slow because then you have no temperature in your tires. So yeah, just trying to find a bit the middle ground initially was a bit tough, but after a few laps I settled in and felt quite comfortable.”

Even in the latter stages, Verstappen appeared to be struggling to find that sweet-spot as he tapped the barrier exiting the Swimming Pool, but says that was due to him trying to keep his level consistently high.

“My engineer was asking me the same thing! It’s more when you’re in a rhythm, to just stay in that. I think I had just one time out of (Turn) 16, I clipped the barrier. I thought I had a bit more margin, and then I touched it and thought, ‘OK, I didn’t have the margin!’

“It was fine. It’s better to be in a rhythm and feel good rather than slow down and get our of your zone, and then also your tires get colder… They were already quite cold. It’s better to stay in that, because I was not overdriving or whatever; I was in the zone.”

Alonso surprised by suggestion Aston error cost win

Fernando Alonso expressed surprise that his Aston Martin team’s pit decision in the wet conditions was called into question over whether it cost him an opportunity to win the Monaco Grand Prix. Aston Martin opted to start the race on the hard …

Fernando Alonso expressed surprise that his Aston Martin team’s pit decision in the wet conditions was called into question over whether it cost him an opportunity to win the Monaco Grand Prix.

Aston Martin opted to start the race on the hard compound tire in a move that appeared to open up more potential to make a pit stop of rain hit, as he would have a wider pit window than other drivers. That scenario is exactly how the race played out, with Alonso trailing Max Verstappen by under nine seconds when he made his first pit stop as rain started to intensify on lap 54. However, Alonso took on medium tires rather than the intermediates being opted for by those pitting directly before him — including teammate Lance Stroll — and had to then make another stop one lap later to reverse the decision at the same time Verstappen stopped from the lead.

“I don’t know, I heard this question in the TV pen as well — I was surprised a little bit,” Alonso said. “I didn’t live the race from the cockpit as probably you saw on the outside. For me, it was very clear that the track, on that lap we stopped, was completely dry apart from Turns 7 and 8. So how would I put on the inters? It was completely dry, 99% of the track. So I stopped for dries.

“The weather forecast, it was a small shower, a small quantity of rain as well what we had as a team. And we had a lot of margin behind us to put the dry tires and if necessary then the inter tires. Maybe it was extra safe. I don’t know.

“That minute and a half that it took to go through Turn 5, 6, 7 and 8 again, it changed completely. The outlap on the dry tires, it was very wet when I got to those corners. The lap that we stopped, it was completely dry.”

Given the fact Verstappen lost nine seconds on the lap Alonso came into the pits and stopped for intermediates himself as soon as the Spaniard came in, the lap times suggest if Alonso had made the switch to intermediates initially he’d have jumped the Red Bull. Regardless, he feels Aston showed its intent in opting for the alternate strategy in the first place.

“I think we didn’t have a chance (in the dry), to be honest,” he said. “I think we were brave on the strategy. It’s not normal that you start on the first row of the grid and you choose the hard tire, trying to do the opposite of the leaders. That shows the commitment from the team and how aggressive everyone was in Aston Martin to try and get the win.

“We knew there were some downsides to that strategy. We could have ended up maybe P5, P6 or something like that, off the podium. This morning we discussed it and we said we’d had podiums this year, so we go for all or nothing, and we start on the hard tire. And we didn’t have the pace. That was the only problem we had in the race.

“The strategy was good. The medium tire was behaving surprisingly good, in our opinion. We were hoping for more graining or bigger degradation, and Max was able to drive 50 laps on an amazing pace. That’s the reason why he won the race, not because of the strategy — he was just faster than us.”

Hamilton praises Mercedes’ ‘good step forward’ in Monaco

Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes made “a good step forward” with its car at the Monaco Grand Prix after both drivers finished in the top five. Mercedes brought a major upgrade to Monaco that should have been introduced in Imola last weekend, and …

Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes made “a good step forward” with its car at the Monaco Grand Prix after both drivers finished in the top five.

Mercedes brought a major upgrade to Monaco that should have been introduced in Imola last weekend, and insisted it would learn little about it on the tight street circuit. However, with team principal Toto Wolff stating the drivers were happier with the car’s handling during the race weekend, after climbing from fifth to fourth Hamilton was encouraged by the performance shown.

“Yes, it’s a good result,” Hamilton said. “Good improvement, overall, as a team I feel we made a good step forward, to finish fourth and fifth in such a tricky race like this one was today, I think it’s a great result. The team did a really great job today with strategy, and I think to get the leapfrog on the Ferrari it’s awesome.

“It feels like the car has progressed — it has moved forwards. I think next week we’ll get a much better view, in a place where we can really push, with medium- and high-speed corners, but I think that, overall, it has been a really positive weekend for us.”

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Hamilton’s positive feeling was also partly due to the need to handle the car in such tricky conditions when heavy rain fell, putting pressure on Esteban Ocon for the final podium spot.

“It was very, very bad. There’s really no word to describe how difficult it was, and I think that, from my side, I couldn’t get the temperature into the intermediate tires, so I was just tiptoeing. I think our crossover was good, it’s just that I lost ground to everyone when I had to stop, so we were at a bit of a disadvantage there and it just made it a little bit tricker, but no mistakes, kept it on track.

“For me, I felt it was very, very twitchy when my tires weren’t working, so it was like I was on ice! But then, after some time, the tires started to work, and it started to be fine. I was so close to going off, crashing and having a big shunt, but it was awesome.”

Verstappen revels in slippery conditions to take dominating Monaco GP win

Max Verstappen took his second victory at the Monaco Grand Prix with a dominating performance despite a chaotic final 30 laps with the arrival of heavy rain. Pole-getter Verstappen had beaten second-starting Fernando Alonso off the line easily and …

Max Verstappen took his second victory at the Monaco Grand Prix with a dominating performance despite a chaotic final 30 laps with the arrival of heavy rain.

Pole-getter Verstappen had beaten second-starting Fernando Alonso off the line easily and was on badly worn medium tires when the showers arrived on lap 50, but he had Fernando Alonso around 10 seconds behind him, depriving him the freedom of immediately responding to weather.

It was a dream scenario for the pursuing Alonso, who had started the race on the hard tire in the hope of running longer than the Dutchman and capitalizing on a late race disruption or the need to switch to intermediates.

But he and his Aston Martin team inexplicably switched to a set of medium slick tires rather than intermediates on lap 54 — despite most of the field coming in on the same lap for wet-weather rubber as the weather rolled in over the Alps.

It was almost immediately obviously the wrong decision, and the need for a second stop to adopt the inters on the following lap gifted Verstappen a chance to bolt on his own intermediate rubber without losing the lead.

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With the exception of a pair of sketchy laps on which he glanced the walls at Portier and in the final sector, the Dutchman enjoyed a relatively smooth sail to the flag with a comfortable 28-second buffer to Alonso behind.

“It was incredibly slippery,” he said. “When you  are that far in the lead you don’t want to push too hard but you don’t want to lose too much time, so it’s quite difficult in that scenario.

“It was super difficult out there, but that’s Monaco.”

Alonso had driven an impressive and disciplined first stint to put himself in a potentially winning position when the rain arrived, but the Spaniard said Verstappen’s pace was too great for him to have a genuine shot at victory.

“We thought to play a long game with the strategy, but Max drove super-well on the medium tires and extended the first stint,” he said. “We didn’t have any chance.

“At the end the rain made things a little bit complicated out there and it wasn’t easy to drive around.”

Gambling on tire choice didn’t pay off for Alonso, although he conceded Verstappen had him covered either way, while Ocon completed the podium with a spirited drive.  Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images

Esteban Ocon completed the podium after a late-race defense of the position ahead of Lewis Hamilton, whose Mercedes looked like the more effective machine in the treacherous conditions.

“It was a super weekend from everyone in the team,” he said. “We didn’t put a foot wrong at any time — even when we put on the inter tires it was the perfect lap to do so. I’m just enjoying the moment now.”

Hamilton finished fourth after inheriting the position from Carlos Sainz, who suffered from what appeared to be another Ferrari tactical blunder early in the race.

The Spaniard had started fourth on the hard tire and anticipated overcutting Ocon for third, but Ferrari brought him in early to defend against Hamilton’s undercut, leaving him stuck in fourth despite his superior race pace.

Frustration appeared to set in for Sainz as he attempted a series of unsuccessful moves on the leading Alpine, and he then spun off the road as the rain fell at Mirabeau, which ultimately dropped him to eighth at the flag after losing momentum.

George Russell finished fifth despite serving a penalty for unsafely rejoining the track. The Briton had dived into the run-off zone at Mirabeau, but as he three-point-turned his way back on track he blocked the path of Sergio Perez, who T-boned him.

Charles Leclerc finished sixth after a clean race, keeping Pierre Gasly at bay in seventh by half a second ahead of the troubled Sainz.

McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri scored doubled points in ninth and 10th after both passed the stubbornly defensive Yuki Tsunoda with DRS around the outside of Sainte Devote. Tsunoda had been complaining about brake problems shortly before being passed, and he subsequently locked up at Mirabeau, which ultimately cost him another four places by the finish.

Valtteri Bottas was a disappointed 11th despite being among the first two drivers, along with Lance Stroll, to correctly pick the intermediate crossover window.

Nyck de Vries finished 12th for the best result of his season, beating Zhou Guanyu and Alex Albon.

Tsunoda was 15th ahead of the hapless Perez after the Mexican gambled on a set of full-wet tires in the hope the rain would intensify. He was forced into a fifth pit stop just to make the flag, compounding a tough day on which he started last on the grid after crashing out of Q1. Perez’s title deficit to Verstappen now stands at a demoralizing 39 points after six rounds.

Nico Hulkenberg finished 17th after being penalized for a clumsy first-lap melee in which he barged past Stroll and Mirabeau and then rear-ended Albon at the hairpin trying to make up ground early.

Logan Sargeant was 18th after struggling with high tire wear during the dry portion of the race, while Kevin Magnussen was last among the finishers in 19th after several visits to the run-off zones in the wet.

Lance Stroll was the race’s only retirement after a crash through the Mirabeau-Portier section of the track.

Leclerc hit with Monaco grid penalty for impeding Norris

Charles Leclerc has been demoted from third to sixth on the grid for the Monaco Grand Prix after impeding Lando Norris during qualifying. The Ferrari driver was in the tunnel section going slowly on a cool-down lap when Lando Norris approached on a …

Charles Leclerc has been demoted from third to sixth on the grid for the Monaco Grand Prix after impeding Lando Norris during qualifying.

The Ferrari driver was in the tunnel section going slowly on a cool-down lap when Lando Norris approached on a timed attempt, having to back off and abort his lap. After discussing the incident for nearly two hours, Leclerc was handed a three-place grid penalty that promotes Esteban Ocon to third, Carlos Sainz to fourth and Lewis Hamilton to fifth.

The stewards deemed that Leclerc himself was not to blame for the incident and had reacted impressively, but that Ferrari did not give him the information it could and should have to avoid impeding another driver.

“Both drivers agreed that there was little that Leclerc could have safely done in the tunnel to avoid impeding Norris, given the difficulty in vision due to the light entering…the tunnel and the change of lines from one side of the tunnel to the other,” the stewards’ decision read. “In fact, the stewards observed that Leclerc reacted in a sensible way to a blue flag displayed by the marshals, but at this point it was too late.

“However, the stewards reviewed team radio, and Leclerc’s team failed to give him any warning about Norris’ approach until Norris was already directly behind him. Further, the discussion during the preceding portion of the track was entirely about competing drivers, not the traffic behind, which is a critical task at this track.

“The stewards believe that there is much that Leclerc could have done prior to the tunnel to avoid the impeding had he received warning from the team at an appropriate time, especially considering that Norris’ approach was clear on the marshaling system. Thus, the stewards consider that the impeding was unnecessary.

“The stewards reviewed all the preceding unnecessarily impeding penalties in the past few years. In every case, the actions, or inaction of the team did not mitigate the unnecessary impeding. Thus the stewards impose the usual penalty of a three grid drop.”

The penalty continues an unfortunate run for Leclerc at his home race, where he has yet to finish on the podium, dropping from pole to fourth due to a strategic error last year in what is his only race finish in the Principality.

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