Kimi Raikkonen was awarded a penalty at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix for being in the wrong position when the race restarted. Alfa Romeo has formally applied for a review against that penalty.
Raikkonen was awarded the 10 second stop-go penalty on lap 34.
According to the stewards, Raikkonen had spun off at Tamburello earlier in the lap. He was then passed by Lewis Hamilton and Yuki Tsunoda.
According to the rules, Raikkonen should have regained his position or started from the pit lane.
Raikkonen’s radio messages showed how confusing the entire situation at Alfa Romeo was. He was told originally to regain his position. However, that order was later overruled.
The stewards do understand the confusion that sprung up during that time due to the rules.
Article 42.6 of the sporting regulations “indicates that should a driver fail to take his position he must enter the pit lane and can only re-join the race once the whole field has passed the pit exit,” they noted.
However another article, 42.12, “indicates that during a rolling start, once the safety car turns its lights out, ‘No driver may overtake another car on the track until he passes the Line…’
In this case, the driver reached the cars ahead of him between turn 13 and 14. The safety car had turned off its lights at turn 10.
“This would appear to be a contradictory instruction and the team instructed the driver to not regain his position, fearing that this would create a safety issue in the wet conditions. They radioed the race director, but there was no time for a response between their call and the restart.
“The stewards consider it to be a further contradiction that when the cars are behind the Safety Car during a Safety Car period, the are prohibited from passing, but when they are behind the Safety Car for a restart, they are permitted to – even though the reasons for a rolling start are that the track conditions don’t permit a standing start.
“However, the rule requiring a car to enter the pit lane if it fails to regain its position is consistent amongst several championships, has been in the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations for several years and has been consistently applied.”
As a result, the stewards had to hand him a 10-second penalty. Since this was imposed at the end of the race, it converted into a 30-second penalty which put Raikkonen at 15th place.
Do you think giving Raikkonen a penalty was a wrong decision? Let us know in the comments below!
Read More: “Have already discussed in private”: Wolff reveals Mercedes has begun contract talks with Hamilton