Bottas penalized. In the case of the Mercedes incident, the stewards called for a change in the rules – F1sport.cz

After the shootout, the sports commissioners dealt with Valtteri Bottas and also the Mercedes team.

Bottas was penalized for blocking Piastri in the shootout and will drop three places at the start of the sprint, meaning he will start last. Both Bottas and the team admitted that the Kick Sauber driver was not alerted by his engineer to the approaching Piastri. Bottas has a new engineer from this weekend.

Mercedes also had to go before the sports commissioners due to the fact that the mechanics were not wearing helmets when Hamilton stopped in the middle of the shootout. In the end, the penalty for the team did not fall.

In their ruling, the stewards noted that Mercedes was not the only team whose mechanics worked without helmets and goggles, “either during or in close proximity to a pit stop.”

Of course, it is not a classic stop during qualification / shootout. But the car is still being worked on outside the garage. Mechanics raise the car and connect the cooling equipment. Sometimes the tires will also be changed.

However, according to the sports commissioners, working without helmets and glasses appears to be “an established practice”, so they felt that “punishing one team when almost all teams could potentially violate this article in some form would be pointless.”

“Therefore we have not taken any further action, however we ask the FIA ​​to consider whether changes need to be made either to the current procedures during qualifying/sprint qualifying or to the regulations themselves.”

Daniel Ricciardo has a penalty in Miami, who already brought it from China for overtaking under the safety car. But it will be applied only on Sunday.