Surreal and harsh sanction to Carlos Sainz and Hamilton is saved from a punishment that was going to take away his podium
Carlos Sainz He crossed the finish line in 12th place, but finally, the FIA announced a harsh penalty for the Spaniard for a mistake at the end of the race: he received a 1-lap penalty, which relegated him to 17th place.
However, the consequence for Sainz It does not go beyond his worst final position in the British GP classification, since the Madrid native had finished the event outside of the points anyway.
Meanwhile, much more important could be the investigation into Lewis Hamilton, who had been third. The Englishman, when he appeared on television, took it for granted that the FIA He was going to be penalized and could lose the podium for not respecting yellow flags that the Englishman claimed he did not see because he was looking at his rearview mirrors, in the middle of a battle with Verstappen. And finally, the stewards gave him a reprimand, something that has no consequence on the podium he achieved at home.
A sanction to Carlos for an understandable misunderstanding
Apparently, the Spaniard had been lapped by Leclerc, but when he finally entered the pits to take advantage of the safety car that came out on the track due to Verstappen’s accident, by traveling fewer meters because he passed through the pit lane, he returned to the track within the lead lap, having overtaken Charles. And then, when the safety car gave the order for the lapped drivers to overtake him, Sainz did so, thinking that he was still one of the lapped drivers in the race.
“Although car 55 was lapped on Safety Car Line 1 upon entering the pit lane, due to the specific configuration of the Silverstone circuit and pit lane, it had temporarily recovered the lap when it crossed the line at the end of the lap during which it again passed through Safety Car Line 1, after it had been deployed,” the FIA said in the official sanction document.
“Consequently, car 55 was not a lapped car for the purposes of article B5.13.4 c) and was therefore not entitled to overtake the Safety Car when the message ‘FLAPPED CARS CAN PASS NOW’ was displayed. However, car 55 regained its lap once Race Direction displayed that message. The stewards noted that, after completing its pit stop, car 55 reverted to a lapped car when it “Given the exceptional circuit configuration at this event, the stewards understand how the sequence of events may have contributed to the team’s confusion,” the document adds.
The non-sanction to Hamilton, explained by the FIA
The FIA statement regarding Hamilton’s non-sanction said the following:
“The tests showed that there was no yellow warning light panel within the pilot’s immediate field of vision and that the yellow indication on the steering wheel display remained visible for a very short period.”
“Therefore, the stewards considered it established that the time available to the driver to react to the yellow flag indication was very limited. The stewards also accept that, immediately before entering the sector, HAM had been involved in an overtaking maneuver with VER and that the driver was expecting a counterattack. As a result, he kept his attention focused on the mirrors for most of the straight towards Turn 10, instead of immediately directing it to the green light panel at the end of the sector.”
“The stewards took this into account when assessing whether the visibility of the green light panel should have made it clear to the driver that he was still within a yellow flag zone. However, the stewards determine that, once the yellow indication appeared on the steering wheel display and the green light panel was illuminated immediately before Turn 10, HAM did not make an appreciable reduction in speed and therefore did not fully comply with the requirements applicable under a simple yellow flag.”
